# Electric Sun **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2006, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586 "2006-07-08T02:15:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/241 "2006-07-17T00:54:37Z")
All right. Cool down. A bit of mockery of an odd idea might fly, here, but direct personal remarks do not. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/242 "2006-07-17T01:57:04Z")
[QUOTE=TheFonz] No, it’s because of people like you. Also, because Electric Universe opponents have been saying that it’s ignorant wibble for so long that if the truth finally came out they’d be out of jobs for being so ignorant themselves. [/QUOTE] FYI, scientists usually do not lose their jobs by being proven wrong. That’s because scientific advances depend on people trying to prove each other wrong. If in the process you prove that your theory is wrong and someone else’s is correct, that’s also a very useful and commendable achievement. I know astronomers who spent their entire careers trying to prove Einstein wrong; they mostly ended up finding even more evidene that Einstein was correct. Most scientists would consider that a successful career. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/243 "2006-07-17T02:33:45Z")
[QUOTE=TheFonz] Really? I was under the impression that weak force/strong force and electromagnetics had all been unified somehow. Besides, prove it. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > I dunno. Nothing I guess. There has to be a relationship between all the forces we know of: strong force, weak force, electromagnetism and gravity. When I say electromagnetism runs the Universe, what I mean to say is that it’s easiest (for me at least) to finally see that big Theory of Everything by looking into electromagnetism. Our planet has a big ass magnetic field, am I to believe that it has nothing to do with the gravity we experience on the ground? The fact that the forces have been unified does not mean what you seem to think it means. This unification of the forces is only apparent at very high energies. At the energies that they manifest themselves in everyday life, the forces behave very differently. See [here](http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/cosmology/forces.html) or [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_force). And, while most scientists in the field do expect that there will eventually be a link made between gravity and the other 3 forces (although how that will be accomplished is still very much up in the air), such a link will not mean that gravity is really just a big ass magnetic field or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/244 "2006-07-17T13:19:16Z")
[QUOTE=TheFonz] [http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/unaguave/060315175226.jpg](http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/unaguave/060315175226.jpg) I’m sure that has NOTHING to do with the shape of our DNA or Birkeland currents. [/QUOTE] And you’d be absolutely correct. The image you’ve linked to is decidedly **not** another galaxy, heck, its not even outside our own galaxy. It lies within our own galaxy, about 300 light years from the galactic centre and is about 80 light years wide – [link to the press release](http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6903) and [link to the original discovery paper](http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512452). We know that it can’t be from outside our own galaxy since it lies towards the centre of our galaxy, and given that we can’t see the other side of our own galaxy, finding something outside our own galaxy that lies on the far side of it is going to be darned near impossible. Also, the nebula, since that’s what it is, is _far_ too small to actually be a galaxy – 80 light years is _nothing_ compared to the size of even our own fairly small galaxy. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/245 "2006-07-17T13:51:40Z")
Thanks to **Angua** for posting the source of the double-helix photo. The use of this photo to “prove” what it does not prove, that there exists a double-helix galaxy, suggests two possibilities to me. One is that **TheFonz** is thoughtlessly using “proof” provided by charlatans on other sites to support ideas he truly believes in. The other is that **TheFonz** is exactly what he has been called in the pit, and he is using such proofs even though he knows that they don’t prove what he implies they do. I’m pretty sure that he posts all of these pics from his own online photo album because he doesn’t want us to easily see where they come from, because they are either from crackpot sites or they are from sites that contradict his assertions about them. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/246 "2006-07-17T14:44:37Z")
[QUOTE=Angua] And you’d be absolutely correct. The image you’ve linked to is decidedly **not** another galaxy, heck, its not even outside our own galaxy. It lies within our own galaxy, about 300 light years from the galactic centre and is about 80 light years wide – [link to the press release](http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6903) and [link to the original discovery paper](http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512452). We know that it can’t be from outside our own galaxy since it lies towards the centre of our galaxy, and given that we can’t see the other side of our own galaxy, finding something outside our own galaxy that lies on the far side of it is going to be darned near impossible. Also, the nebula, since that’s what it is, is _far_ too small to actually be a galaxy – 80 light years is _nothing_ compared to the size of even our own fairly small galaxy. [/QUOTE] I thank you, too. Since I called him out on producing a picture of a double helix galaxy, I’m glad somebody could debunk his “proof”. I was certain what he posted wasn’t a galaxy, I just didn’t know where to start pointing that out. Not that I imagine it will do one bit of good convincing him of that. Now, about those elliptical galaxies, **Fonz**. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/247 "2006-07-17T19:21:17Z")
[QUOTE=TheFonz] Our planet has a big ass magnetic field, am I to believe that it has nothing to do with the gravity we experience on the ground? [/QUOTE] If there’s such an intrinsic connection, why is that Mars has exactly as much gravity as we’d expect from its mass, yet has practically no magnetic field? ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/248 "2006-07-17T19:37:51Z")
[QUOTE=Smeghead] If there’s such an intrinsic connection, why is that Mars has exactly as much gravity as we’d expect from its mass, yet has practically no magnetic field? [/QUOTE] And indeed, Venus has close to the same mass as Earth, yet has [almost no magnetic field](http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/2004/vt_venus_planetary_2004.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/249 "2006-07-17T19:41:28Z")
Doesn’t Uranus have a decidedly off-center magnetic field (combined with a 98[sup]o[/sup] axial tilt which probably _was_ caused by a massive collision early in its formation)? What effect, if any does this (or should this) have on the planet’s gravity? I know it’s pointless to ask, but what experiment can TheFonz conceive of that could prove or disprove his hypothesis? ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/250 "2006-07-17T20:17:48Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Doesn’t Uranus have a decidedly off-center magnetic field (combined with a 98[sup]o[/sup] axial tilt which probably _was_ caused by a massive collision early in its formation)? [/quote] Yes, the magnetic axis makes a [60-degree angle](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/uranus_magnetosphere.html) with the rotational axis, making its magnetosphere and plasmasphere pretty bizarre compared to the other planets. Depending on the time of year (Uranus’s year), escaping plasma can be leaving Uranus in a sort of a corkscrew-shaped trail in the anti-solar direction — a bit like water from a rotating sprinkler. > [@](#): > > What effect, if any does this (or should this) have on the planet’s gravity? The gravitational field is affected only by the mass distribution, and not directly by any magnetism. There is _some_ mass trapped in Uranus’s magnetic field, but it’s an insignificant amount compared to the bulk mass of the planet — which is pretty close to spherically symmetric. Or an oblate spheroid anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/251 "2006-07-17T20:21:24Z")
[QUOTE=Bytegeist] Yes, the magnetic axis makes a [60-degree angle](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/uranus_magnetosphere.html) with the rotational axis, making its magnetosphere and plasmasphere pretty bizarre compared to the other planets. Depending on the time of year (Uranus’s year), escaping plasma can be leaving Uranus in a sort of a corkscrew-shaped trail in the anti-solar direction — a bit like water from a rotating sprinkler. [/QUOTE] Dude, that’s the double helix! ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/252 "2006-07-17T23:05:03Z")
[QUOTE=Smeghead] If there’s such an intrinsic connection, why is that Mars has exactly as much gravity as we’d expect from its mass, yet has practically no magnetic field? [/QUOTE] I might not be back later, so I’m going to go ahead and preemptively add this to the list of questions TheFonz will be ignoring. ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/253 "2006-07-17T23:13:12Z")
[QUOTE=Bytegeist] Yes, the magnetic axis makes a [60-degree angle](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/uranus_magnetosphere.html) with the rotational axis, making its magnetosphere and plasmasphere pretty bizarre compared to the other planets. Depending on the time of year (Uranus’s year), escaping plasma can be leaving Uranus in a sort of a corkscrew-shaped trail in the anti-solar direction — a bit like water from a rotating sprinkler. The gravitational field is affected only by the mass distribution, and not directly by any magnetism. There is _some_ mass trapped in Uranus’s magnetic field, but it’s an insignificant amount compared to the bulk mass of the planet — which is pretty close to spherically symmetric. Or an oblate spheroid anyway. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but… do you have pictures to support your data? Because any other kind of evidence will be disregarded by our OP. ---
**Author:** ![TheFonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@TheFonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFonz)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/254 "2006-07-17T23:13:25Z")
[http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060217deepimpact3.htm](http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060217deepimpact3.htm) Whoop Whooop! > [@](#): > > And indeed, Venus has close to the same mass as Earth, yet has almost no magnetic field. Magnetic fields are caused by moving charged particles. Venus absorbs. Note the top half of Mars and how it was eaten by Venus, as well as the exploded ex-planet asteroid belt that Venus absorbed a while bunch out of. If you’re trying to be smart and say “size doesn’t equal magnetic field” then you’re right, but neither did Captain Obvious. [QUOTE=American Institute of Physics] [VENUS’ TAIL REACHES ALL THE WAY TO EARTH. Recently the Venus shadow, cast by the Sun, passed across the SOHO satellite (in Earth orbit), allowing SOHO to detect the plume of ions kicked out of Venus’ upper atmosphere by the solar wind.](http://www.aip.org/pnu/1997/split/pnu325-4.htm) [/quote] Yeah that’s right, a stringy object came flying all the way towards Earth and nearly reached our damn planet. It probably stopped when it reached our magnetic field, but oh well. I’m sure this stringy object has nothing to do with the awesome surface features of Venus that resemble Lichtenberg figures: And Larry! It was the coming economic depression that got me started reading up on all this. The way I figure it, another economic depression would utterly devastate our society what with so many people bearing arms. I don’t know what got me thinking another depression was coming, but I found this site run by a Mr. Watson: [http://www.markswatson.com](http://www.markswatson.com) The guy was running a series of articles titled “The Coming Economic Depression” that he now runs under the name “The Spiritual, Economic and Political Review.” They are very good, and required reading for any Doper if they know what’s good for them. Anyways, it got me thinking if another economic crisis were to hit, that would surely be very, very bad news. I already believed our world was overpopulated, and I was concerned about what would happen if our climate changed significantly. What would happen to all the people who depended on our stable climate to sustain our agriculture? We have 6.5 billion human beings that need to be feeded. I began wondering about things I’d never wondered before, like how all the chemicals that go into our foods cause cancer. How our foods are not as nutritious as they were for previous generations because we’ve over-farmed the land. I began wondering what the future of humanity would be like, since these problems would not go away but could only escalate. It was probably around mid-2005 when I began looking into all the NWO conspiracies, because surely some elite people were already looking into all these problems and were forming a solution? Maybe they weren’t telling us, because the solution involved killing off many, many people. Either way, I knew _somebody_ had to know what was going on. I began telling all my friends that something bad was going to happen, that something bad _had_ to happen. A few weeks later the hurricanes of 2005 happened, New Orleans was drowned, and so many coincidences that set off my radar. It appeared as if these hurricanes weren’t caused by “warm rising air” because of how fast the blew up, and how much lightning was in the eye wall. It appeared as if the hurricanes was being directed by somebody, because of how it moved and how it strengthened. It was headed directly for New Orleans right before landfall, and yet the eye never appeared over New Orleans. It veered right at the last instant and devasted the Fourchane to the East, and my senses told me that hurricanes don’t veer anywhere. The strange weather in my city has also made me believe in the electric nature of our planet. We’ve had nights with extremely weird overcast, ball lightning, lightning storms that appear to drive the storm and not the other way around. I even saw one “Thor’s Hammer” bolt that came out of the overcast clouds, struck the air and spread out in every direction like a ring of electricity, out into the horizon as far as my eyes could see. Too much stuff is crappenin’ around the world for me to not believe in something. This is what frustrates me when talking to the Dopers, because they believe I am the one who is arrogant and ignorant when it is THEY who cannot see the world falling apart around their very eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/255 "2006-07-17T23:18:02Z")
[QUOTE=TheFonz] This is what frustrates me when talking to the Dopers, because they believe I am the one who is arrogant and ignorant when it is THEY who cannot see the world falling apart around their very eyes. [/QUOTE] Yup, that’s it. You’re the sane one. It’s the rest of the world that’s nucking futz. ---
**Author:** ![DxZero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DxZero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DxZero)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/256 "2006-07-17T23:22:45Z")
> [@](#): > > We have 6.5 billion human beings that need to be feeded. Out of the whole trainwreck of a post, I found this statement the most telling. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/257 "2006-07-17T23:23:28Z")
[QUOTE=TheFonz] Note the top half of Mars and how it was eaten by Venus. [/QUOTE] When viewed from Earth (and indeed when viewed by all the probes sent from Earth), the top half of Mars appears disappointingly uneaten. Perhaps it looks different when viewed from your planet, or by probes that were launched from your planet. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/258 "2006-07-18T00:09:30Z")
…mmmmm… Mars bar… ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/259 "2006-07-18T00:16:14Z")
Unless I see \*\*TheFonz \*\* explaining or replying to **Angua** ’s post #244, there is nothing else to see here. When your evidence is misleading, then your theories will be too **TheFonz**. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586/260 "2006-07-18T00:17:24Z")
Thanks for answering my question **Fonz**. Good luck with everything. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-sun/363586.md?page=14)