Monday, September 21, 2009

Gregory P. Laughlin On Expanding Planets



Here is yet another example of how everything they say contradicts everything they believe. UC Santa Cruz Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Astrobiology Professor Gregory P. Laughlin is interviewed on The History Channel's The Universe Season 2. He says the following about the Expansion Tectonics of expanding planets:

"... we think that the reason why that's happening [planetary expansion tectonics] is because they have an internal source of heat which is raising the pressure inside the planet and causing it to expand. That's very similar to a steam boiler on a steam train. In a steam boiler you have water which is being heated by a heat source. That water is turning to steam. The pressure is increasing and that's causing the piston of the boiler to move out, to expand. If you didn't have the gases ability to expand, planets wouldn't inflate. Steam trains wouldn't work. We wouldn't be climbing up this mountain. " -- Gregory P. Laughlin, planetary scientist, November 2007

45 comments:

  1. If it were just a matter of heating, then you have a problem with gravity. At a higher density, gravity would be the same or greater than it is today.

    As the earth expands, due to lower density, gravity lessens a bit over time.

    This does not solve anything, especially arguments about dinosaurs and their tendency to be larger than today's animals.

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  2. This does not disprove the existance of gravitation, I think you're learning Oils. ;)

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  3. Hi Jeffery,


    I'm not a proponent of the Expanding Earth Hypothesis.


    In the history channel documentary, I was referring to highly irradiated gas-giant planets, and using an analogy to explain why they are systematically observed to have larger radii than planets like Jupiter which have much lower surface temperatures.


    In essence, I was talking about the ideal gas law. The analogy does not apply to a solid-state body such as the Earth, where the equation of state shows essentially no increase in pressure with temperature.


    cheers,
    Greg Laughlin

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  4. In a solid state, pressure can still increase with temperature, especially when the coefficient of expansion is low and the material is more brittle, the difference is that the pressure is called "stress" though. A heated piece of glass or ceramic, for instance, will build up pressure until it cracks.

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  5. So do planets expand or not? I'm so confused (big ass roll eyes).

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  6. According the fine fellow you quote-mined, gas giants can, and solid planets do not.

    I'd link you to a picture I drew and colored in, but I have to go watch Attack of the Show now.

    In the future, please do not distort research in that fashion. I knew when I saw the brackets you were putting words in Laughlin's mouth. 0/10

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  7. Well, it doesn't surprise me one bit that Dr. Laughlin doesn't subscribe to the idea of expanding planets.

    If there is one thing I've found, it is that academics are complete herd animals.

    (Part of the problem is that academic politics being what they are, anybody that steps out of line gets ridiculed without mercy because everybody thinks: "That's one less person ahead of me in the academic pecking order.")

    Jeffery, academics are worse than gelded sheep and make you look like a regular mustang maverick.

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  8. Iron does temporarily expand from a BCC structure to a FCC structure upon cooling.

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  9. Dr Laughlin's position in the "herd" is not at issue here. The issue is that Oils took a quote, doctored it, and presented it as "evidence" for his pet hypothesis.

    It's disingenuous at best. Aren't there enough EE clowns in the circus he can quote without stooping to quote-mining? Besides, I've seen better quote-mining from AiG. Those guys know how to hack up science into easily-distorted bits of nonsense.

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  10. Jeffery,

    You are lying again. Nothing was doctored at all.

    Either planets expand or they don't. So which is it?

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  11. Wash, rinse, repeat, eh, Anaconda?

    Anyone you do not agree with is a herd animal. Its one thing to allow evidence to sway you, and another to blindly accept whatever is thrown your way.

    Greg Laughlin's blog is full of cutting edge exoplanet research that I really enjoyed. He is at odds with a number of consenus-borne ideas. I'd recommend his work to anyone.

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  12. "... we think that the reason why that's happening [planetary expansion tectonics] is because they have an internal source of heat which is raising the pressure inside the planet and causing..."

    See the bracketed bit? That's you replacing Greg's words with your own. Read his explanation of the quote. You'll see that two very different intrepretations arise from his original meaning and your edit.

    Gas Giants expanding due to heat from stellar proximity and rocky planets expanding because of hypothesized "Plasma Accretion" are not the same thing and you know it.

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  13. Jeffery,

    "Gas Giants expanding due to heat from stellar proximity and rocky planets expanding because of hypothesized "Plasma Accretion" are not the same thing and you know it."

    They are not exactly the same but they are similar in that they both say that planets expand.

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  14. Keown: "Wash, rinse, repeat, eh, Anaconda?

    Anyone you do not agree with is a herd animal. Its one thing to allow evidence to sway you, and another to blindly accept whatever is thrown your way."

    Hardly, I've been consistent on planetary expansion, not just an expanding Earth.

    I evaluate the entire body of evidence.

    (How many times have you failed to consider or ignored anomalous evidence presented to you on this website, or have not followed other commenters advice which directed you to a piece of additional evidence?

    Oh, I'm sure your ready response would be never, but too many times, I've presented evidence and you failed to address it.)

    Keown: "Greg Laughlin's blog is full of cutting edge exoplanet research that I really enjoyed. He is at odds with a number of consenus-borne ideas. I'd recommend his work to anyone."

    Laughlin's exoplanetary work maybe perfectly fine, but doesn't have anything to do with Expanding Earth theory or it's corollary of expanding planets.

    As you state it, Laughlin's work is "cutting edge", there is no body of dogmatism surrounding exoplanets for him to contradict, thus, Laughlin doesn't take on the constituents in academia of any particlular established dogma.

    Fine.

    But hardly a profile in courage, either.

    And the evidence is limited by the observation & measurements of exoplanets which at this point, anyway, is difficult and mostly indirect.

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  15. I'd just like to see research represented honestly, that's all.

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  16. Jeffery,

    How was the word "expand" presented dishonestly?

    What part of "expand" don't you understand?

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  17. Your agenda is clear. The presupposition of this website is that Earth is bigger now (by a significant measure) than it was 200 mya. You doctored that quote to make it appear that Greg Laughlin agreed with your position. He clearly does not, by his own words. He was talking about gas giants expanding due to heat. Do I have to repeat myself again?

    Your. Edit. Was. Dishonest.

    You shouldn't doctor "evidence" to give your claims weight they do not otherwise have. I will not comment further on this matter.

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  18. Jeffery,

    You are pathetic. "Expand" was his word NOT mine. What "agenda" did he have when he used the word "expand"?

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  19. Jeffery,

    "You doctored that quote to make it appear that Greg Laughlin agreed with your position."

    This is a blatant lie however your reading comprehension is so poor it went right over your head.

    This is what I actually said, "Here is yet another example of how everything they say contradicts everything they believe."

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  20. How old are you OilIsMastery?

    12?

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  21. OIM,

    I have been reading your blog for about six months and mostly enjoy it for your incessant search for supporting your views, some valid, some speculative. You do have a knack for coming up with interesting stories and that keeps life fun.

    I also enjoy comments, especially from Jeffery Keown as he tries to keep your posts in scientific realms – hypothesis, computability/testability, and predictability, and most important, revising and even abandoning obsolete thinking based on solid independently verifiable evidences and new experiments.

    I read Velikovsky’s book Worlds in Collision long time ago when I was beginning to delve in to nonlinear systems. So, his book was within plausibility, but lacked rigor and predictability of future events. Nor, there were any models that were computable. Concurrently, I was also reading mythology series by Joseph Campbell and it countered many of Velikovsky’s claims, providing alternate interpretations in human psyche.

    Here are a few comments:

    Abiotic oil: Since Titan is full of gas (pun intended), the best hypothesis I have is that far away planets/moons being colder kept the hydrocarbons, while, nearby planets/moons lost them, due to heat and cataclysm of the solar system formation. Recent works on high pressure and temperature chemistry of methane/ethane etc. are much more interesting as these mechanisms may provide natural recycling of carbon in our world. The issues are the rate, stability and dynamics necessary to become a stable and inexhaustible source of energy, until the earth cools down. The reality we are facing is simple: in the short run, we run out of (cheap) biotic fossil fuels, we pollute the planet in the process, and may even go to many wars for energy all over the world. We also have choices to conserve, seek alternate energy, learn to recycle carbon at much faster pace (biofuels), etc. At minimum, it will create lots of jobs and deplete existing fossil sources lot slower possibly avoiding wars and providing time to solve the real problems.

    Plasma Universe: My initial desire for research was magneto-hydro-dynamics, MHD. Subsequent work involved applied electro-chemistry, so for me, plasma phenomena are interesting and not well understood scientifically. I do have serious reservation on electric universe, as it is way complex, no simple rules (like Newton’s law) to move and fly in the local spaces, and most troubling aspect is the origin of EU. I know if I jump out of the window, what would likely happen… I have near certain predictability and computability and all I need is a paper, pencil and simple equations. The same equations apply to a most all situations I encounter, in car, in plane, as I step down the ladder etc. Gravitational reality is much more powerful, though it may not be a complete picture, but good enough to live a life by. – continued in Part 2

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  22. Part 2:
    Creator: You seem to imply that there was a creator, who was alien coming from 4~10 light-years away, messed around with the genetics, modified a bit here and there so that they can have sex with fair maidens. Then, left to mess around with other worlds, and forgot they were giants, chimeras, etc. all happened anywhere between 5000 and 50,000 years ago. My question is who created these aliens? Again, I will not discount a very small probability that there may be external influence in human history, but got to have evidence – really genetic evidence, and dead bodies of these aliens, as they were engaged in warfares among themselves. A human mind is pretty weird stuff, it is not that hard to imagine – just analyze pathos and taboos in our modern society. Some went to war to prove Christian god is more powerful that Islamic god and vice versa, and they were generals, secretary of defense etc.

    Expanding Planets: Here, I will give you credit for innovative way to look at the surface features of planets. Your premise requires that all planets must accumulate more mass that somehow must go into the center and then act to expand the planet. Physics accepts that all stars go through a life-cycle where it might go nova, super-nova, or to red giant. I am not aware of any studies for planet life-cycle. Physics accepts colliding galaxies, and cataclysmic star formations. I believe, it is not difficult for physics to accept comets and planets to collide, heck, the whole solar system comes into being through such collisions. All that is at issue is whether such an event happened in recent times, within human memory and records. For the last 80 or so years, we have been focused on general theory of relativity and gravitational space-time. In recent times, many advances are proposed: string theory is one, membranes that come in contact to create a Universe like what we have theorized including big bang, and many such universes that may not be observed, etc. I believe, the importance of EM’s role in the Universe is ignored, or presumed to be local not affecting Universe at grander scale. This may change as we improve our understandings. May be we should consider planets oscillate, and plate tectonics highly damped, whereby you may have widening rifts and subducting plates at the same time, as well as preservation of boundaries or viscous memory. I do recall doing experiments in very high viscous fluids that if rotated slowly, would behave elastically.

    Science: The very basis of the science is to accept that our models, methods, and understandings can be more perfect, and so we continually research, experiment, reformulate all our experiences so that they become predictable – like the keyboard with which I am writing this. As I mistype, I am continually prompted to correct my spelling etc., and for most persons, it is magic initially (observe a child learning a video game), then an acceptance of its ability, then using it without ever knowing how it really does this, and for a few a new god, or at least a deity. Most kids talk about how to press button combinations to open a portal… For example, you posted a star map showing alpha Centuri as possible source of these aliens, and also observed the heavens would look nearly the same, as it is on earth. All one has to do is understand the vastness of the scale of the heavens, vs. the locality of a star group. All distance mountains look the same for all nearby observers.

    Finally, you seem to have background in IT/software development. This field is highly deterministic and error are glaringly frowned on. For most IT guys, it is all about “yes” or “no” premises, and nothing in between. Look at your responses to Jeffery, where you ask him if he agrees or not! Nothing in-between. Change a bit, but do keep up the good work, especially when you post without adulteration.

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  23. TS,

    Welcome to the website.

    Truth does not discriminate on the basis of a age. So if a 12 year old says something that is correct, his youthfulness doesn't invalidate the truth of his statements.

    Furthermore, ad hominem attacks are a logical fallacy and cannot be considered logical or scientific. Ad hominem fallacies are a common mistake of people who are ignorant and lack education.

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  24. KV,

    I appreciate your comments.

    Just a couple of quick points where I disagree.

    "I also enjoy comments, especially from Jeffery Keown as he tries to keep your posts in scientific realms – hypothesis, computability/testability, and predictability..."

    Unfortunately gravitation, gravitons, gravitational waves, the Big Bang, black holes, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Dark Flow cannot be observed, measured, or tested.

    "So, his book was within plausibility, but lacked rigor and predictability of future events."

    This is simply not true. Velikovsky made several correct predictions unlike his opponents like Harlow Shapley who predicted that the Milky Way was the entire universe, Albert Einstein who predicted there is no electromagnetism in space, and Carl Sagan who predicted that Venus is a freezing cold ice world.

    "But then if there were events of this character, discharges between planets and so on, I put one of the most outrageous claims before the scientific readers, that in the solar system and in the universe generally, not just gravitation and inertia are the two forces of action but that also electricity and magnetism are participating in the mechanism. So the Lord was not just a watchmaker. The universe is not free of those forces with which the man makes his life easy already more than 100 years. They were unknown practically or little known in the time of Newton in the second half of the 17th century. But today we know that electricity and magnetism, these are not just small phenomena that we can repeat as a kind of a little trick in the lab, that they permeate every field from neurology into botony and chemistry and astronomy should not be free...and it was admitted by authorities that this was the most outrageous point in my claims. But the vengeance came early and swiftly. In 1960, already in 1955, radio noises from Jupiter were detected and this was one of the crucial tests that I offered for the truth of my theory. In 1958, the magnetosphere was discovered around the Earth, another claim. In 1960, the interplanetary magnetic field was discovered and solar plasma, so-called solar wind, moving rapidly along the magnetic lines and then it was discovered that the electromagnetic field of the Earth reaches the moon ." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966

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  25. In all fairness to Einstein though, he did eventually come round though he passed away days later.

    "I have again read Worlds in Collision. It is a book of immeasurable importance, and scientists should read it." -- Albert Einstein, mathematician, April 1955

    "...Worlds In Collision was the one book which lay open on Einstein's desk at the time of his death." -- Charles Ginenthal, historian, 1995

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  26. OIM,

    Gravitation is a theory to explain our everyday experiences of things falling to the ground. If you do not believe, try to fly off as you jump from a safe distance. Same for all the rest of things under scientific inquiry...

    On Velikovsky quote: So the Lord was not just a watchmaker.

    This is where the problem lies. Lord, as scientific concept can not be approached. There is a different medium for it - philosophy and religion. You might want to read Bhagvata Gita, where Lord (another one, you see) Krishna reveals His domain, which is the whole Universe. For me, it is fascinating insights of sages of old India, long before Velikovsky, Einstein, Newton, and may be most all the Greeks.

    Science deconstructs complex phenomena to elements that are comprehensible. So when you look at gravity, you do not think of EM and vice versa. Why? There is a range issue of the forces (another approximation of science).

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  27. KV,

    "Gravitation is a theory to explain our everyday experiences of things falling to the ground."

    And it fails. The moon does not fall to the ground at the rate of 9.8 meters per second squared but rather falls away from the ground at 3.8 centimeters per year. Furthermore, the clouds do not fall to the ground but rather defy gravity. All of the chemical molecules in the air do not fall to the ground, rather they all defy gravity by their atomic weights.

    "So when you look at gravity, you do not think of EM and vice versa. Why?"

    Faraday, Velikovsky, and myself do. It's mainstream science that does not.

    "The long and constant persuasion that all the forces of nature are mutually dependent, having one common origin, or rather being different manifestations of one fundamental power, has often made me think on the possibility of establishing, by experiment, a connection between gravity and electricity …no terms could exaggerate the value of the relation they would establish.'' -- Michael Faraday, physicist, 1865

    "Gravitation is an electromagnetic phenomenon." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946

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  28. OIM, I wasn't commenting on your ignorance or lack of education, it was a comment sparked by your replies to Jeffery Keown.

    JK goes to the trouble of contacting the person you have quoted and gets a reply with the right context and relays it here, your response was:

    So do planets expand or not? I'm so confused (big ass roll eyes)[like a 12 year old brat].
    [like a 12 year old brat]

    JK: In the future, please do not distort research in that fashion. I knew when I saw the brackets you were putting words in Laughlin's mouth. 0/10

    JK: The issue is that Oils took a quote, doctored it, and presented it as "evidence" for his pet hypothesis.

    OIM: Jeffery,
    You are lying again. Nothing was doctored at all.
    Either planets expand or they don't. So which is it?


    You blatantly call JK a liar, who put those brackets in the quote OIM?
    There is no mention of "planetary expansion tectonics" other than in those brackets that you put in the quote.
    JK called it quote-mining, in my profession we use the expression "salted", which can happen intentionally or by accident.
    I do not for one minute believe that you by accident hit the cut-and-paste sequence with those brackets and words, which mean you did it intentionally.
    That my friend is quote-salting which is equal to lying and only children will fabricate such a clumsy lie.

    Then you try to change the argument into whether the word "expand" was used or not, which is just plain immature.

    You have been weighed and found too light, sorry.

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  29. OIM

    You stated: ...The moon does not fall to the ground at the rate of 9.8 meters per second squared...

    You seem to enjoy making arogant (may be ignorant) statements only to rile others. May be that is your joy.

    Here is a suggestion for you: since moon is moving at 3.8 cm/year away from the Earth, you should climb up a ladder of say 20 ft, and really try to fly. I don't know how mnay millions and millions of years it would take for you to reach to moon, but like the moon, you should be moving away from the Earth, and not come down crashing, unfortunately, per Newton's laws. Be safe, make sure the ground below is jello, or water and hope you know how to swim...

    I suggest you read my lengthy two part comment again. Gravity helps me explain my local reality real well, and allows me to do just about everything with a few simple equations. Ultimately, you got to accept what works!

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  30. OIM

    You stated: ...The moon does not fall to the ground at the rate of 9.8 meters per second squared...

    You seem to enjoy making arogant (may be ignorant) statements only to rile others. May be that is your joy.

    Here is a suggestion for you: since moon is moving at 3.8 cm/year away from the Earth, you should climb up a ladder of say 20 ft, and really try to fly. I don't know how mnay millions and millions of years it would take for you to reach to moon, but like the moon, you should be moving away from the Earth, and not come down crashing, unfortunately, per Newton's laws. Be safe, make sure the ground below is jello, or water and hope you know how to swim...

    I suggest you read my lengthy two part comment again. Gravity helps me explain my local reality real well, and allows me to do just about everything with a few simple equations. Ultimately, you got to accept what works!

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  31. KV,

    "Here is a suggestion for you: since moon is moving at 3.8 cm/year away from the Earth, you should climb up a ladder of say 20 ft, and really try to fly."

    I'd be happy to climb off a ladder on the ISS. Will you pay for me to go?

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  32. "Ultimately, you got to accept what works!"

    Just because something works doesn't make it true. The Ptolemaic model works. However, gravitation doesn't work. If gravitation is a law, then the universe is a criminal.

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  33. OIM,

    Two points:

    1 - 9.8 m/s/s is acceleration; while moon going away at 3.8 cm/year is velocity. Also, note per second to per year, and a year has over 31 million seconds.

    2. Even if you fall from ISS, you will come to the ground, provided your spacesuit last long enough as your orbit decays.

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  34. OIM,

    Your comment:

    Just because something works doesn't make it true. The Ptolemaic model works. However, gravitation doesn't work. If gravitation is a law, then the universe is a criminal.

    This does not make sense, universe could care less what we think about it, especially, whether it is criminal or not!

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  35. KV,

    In response to your 2 points.

    "1 - 9.8 m/s/s is acceleration; while moon going away at 3.8 cm/year is velocity. Also, note per second to per year, and a year has over 31 million seconds.

    2. Even if you fall from ISS, you will come to the ground, provided your spacesuit last long enough as your orbit decays."

    The moon's orbit is increasing not decaying.

    "Currently, the moon is moving away from the Earth at such a great rate, that if you extrapolate back in time — the moon would have been so close to the Earth 1.4 billion years ago that it would have been torn apart by tidal forces (Slichter, 1963)." — Dennis J. McCarthy, geoscientist, 2003

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  36. @ KV:

    Abiotic Oil theory:

    Actually, there is plenty of scientific evidence that Earth has had periods of intense hydrocarbon eruption very much like Titan.

    Keep your eyes open: The evidence of Abiotic oil (all oil is abiotic) theory is overwhelming.

    There undoubtedly is some recycling, but most hydrocarbons are the result of primordial chemical elements in the Earth's deep crust and shallow mantel.

    And here is why you should review in depth the evidence for Abiotic Oil theory.

    KV wrote: "...and may even go to many wars for energy all over the world."

    Because more hydrocarbons are present in the Earth's crust than the outdated "fossil" theory allows for, and the hydrocarbons are more evenly spread out (the science also supports more evenly spread out deposits of hydrocarbons), there is no reason to go to war.

    The "resource war" senario spun out by "peak" oil "doomers" is entirely unnecessary.

    And at the current time, alternative energy production technology is insufficient to meet the energy needs of growing societies.

    Forced reliance on alternative energy technology before the technology is realistically able to support growing societies will actually do more to cause "resource wars" than anything else.

    Because those forcing the reliance will claim there isn't enough "cheap", your word not mine, resources which in turn will make it all the more tempting to "go to war" to get what resources are left to keep "their" society growing.

    Anyhow, keep an open-mind.

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  37. @ KV:

    While your comments on Abiotic Oil theory is interesting, it is the plasma physics comments that are truly intriquing and hopeful to me.

    Plasma Universe:

    KV, at least your initial comments suggest you have an open-mind. That is the most important part as well as the first step to understanding something.

    However, you, KV, go on:

    "I do have serious reservation on electric universe, as it is way complex, no simple rules (like Newton’s law) to move and fly in the local spaces, and most troubling aspect is the origin of EU."

    And further:

    "I know if I jump out of the window, what would likely happen… I have near certain predictability and computability and all I need is a paper, pencil and simple equations. The same equations apply to a most all situations I encounter, in car, in plane, as I step down the ladder etc. Gravitational reality is much more powerful, though it may not be a complete picture, but good enough to live a life by."

    Yes, gravity is our constant companion on and near the Earth's surface. It is our environment of experience, and, thus, important to understand and quantify, but our experience is of a very narrow slice of physical reality which is present and operating beyond the Earth's surface.

    And, while harder to quantify than gravity, it is no less important to understand.

    KV wrote: "Gravitational reality is much more powerful, though it may not be a complete picture, but good enough to live a life by."

    Yes, good enough to "live a life by", but not good enough to advance a civilization by.

    We've "maxed out" gravity; in order to keep societies growing, we must understand and control a much more dynamic energy system than gravity: Electromagnetism.

    As Hannes Alfven wrote: "Gravitational sytems are the ashes of prior electrical systems."

    Please keep an open-mind.

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  38. Anaconda,

    In my two part note, I have amply demonstrated an open mind. As you said, abiotic oil is a theory, more like a hypothesis, which needs to be proven unequivocally. Whether I believe in abiotic oil is really not that important. For me, we are stuck with the political reality that oil is controlled by a few, and we depend on the stuff. If alternate energy provides a relief, I have no problem with it.

    Alfven comment that gravitational systems are the ashes of prior electrical systems is of no bearing here, as we are still stuck in the gravitational systems. I could also distort Alfven by interpreting his comment to imply that electric systems have died out and we are stuck with gravitational tinder, so live with it! Read up your Newton!

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  39. @ KV:

    KV wrote: "[Abiotic Oil is] more like a hypothesis..."

    Actually, there are numerous observations & measurements in the field and laboratory that support the physical reality of Abiotic Oil.

    There are claims that have been made for "fossil" theory, and each and every claim has been examined and dismissed.

    There is a reason there is no chemical process identified for hydrocarbon formation from organic detritus, nor has organic detritus ever been turned into oil in the lab.

    Frankly, KV, your characterization of Abiotic Oil theory as a hypothesis and your clinging to "fossil" theory in light of the little evidence that supports that idea is instructive.

    It suggests you haven't engaged in independent research on the subject, whether on this website or anywhere else.

    KV wrote: "If alternate energy provides a relief, I have no problem with it."

    Agreed.

    However, subsidies for alternative energy will not work.

    Alternative energy must be self-supporting and not because the government has run the price of oil and other conventional sources of energy "through the roof" to fulfill ideological agendas.

    Actually, my position is that Man needs to understand the reality of both hydrocarbons and electromagnetic energy.

    That understanding will likely lead to actual alternative energy technology that is above and beyound hydrocarbons in power production and efficiency -- I'm all for that.

    Also, your suggestion that my reference to Alfven's quote is a distortion is wrong.

    How was I distorting Alven's meaning or his views on plasma in the Universe?

    I hope I'm wrong, but the nature of your responses, so far, KV, suggest to me an emerging typical position of "modern" astronomers: Admit electromagnetism is present in space in general terms, but at the slightest mention of specifics, go into "protect" mode of whatever "gravity" status quo idea presently rules the roost in "modern" astronomy.

    Seen that before -- it isn't persuasive.

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  40. Anaconda,

    As I said, whether I believe in abiotic oil or not, is not important. Why? For our lifetimes, what matters is oil as produced and controlled by a few. For the record, I am aware that some of the old oil fields thought spent have been replenishing without explanation. Many oil and gas companies report increased reserves. They seem to include explanations, but it gets boring that every year, the reserves keep rising, while we are made to be afraid of peak oil.

    Regarding Alfven: I said, I could, but I am not. I have read Alfven's work. Again, even if gravity is a tinder of old EM fires, it is still gravity and we have to learn to deal with it.

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  41. @ KV:

    As I've stated before, we are "maxed out" on gravity. Generally, by and large, in terms of everyday life experiences, we understand gravity.

    What we need to advance human understanding is to understand the role of electromagnetism in the Universe, which, of course, includes the Earth's surface and near-surface.

    But what I see and read time after time is astronomers and astrophysicists downplaying and dismissing electromagnetism.

    (There is an unmistakable hostility in their responses.)

    This is completely wrongheaded.

    Why?

    Because time after time, Science has seen that electromagnetism plays a bigger role in various physical dynamics than previously thought.

    How many times do we have to see that before astronomers and astrophysicists "get on board" and truly push to understand this vital and Fundamental Force in the Universe?

    Because right now there is a mulish tendency to say, "yes, but."

    Sorry, the scientific evidence suggests the time for "yes, but" is past.

    Time to embrace the the quest to understand electromagnetism in all its emanations in all places in the Universe.

    "Yes, but" has little to do with that quest.

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  42. There have been several peer-reviewed papers lately about the role of electromagnetism in star and planet formation. Just this year, two of these papers were highlighted in Universe Today.

    As more and more confirmations of the Nebular Hypothesis are uncovered, we'll see a great deal more of it.

    In fact, electromagnetic forces may be the key to the theories problems of gas giant formation and angular momentum loss.

    Just sayin'...

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  43. @ Jeffery Keown:

    I accept your point and hope it's a trend that continues.

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