The Electric Universe Theory

[smurfslappa]

I’m wondering how many Dopers have heard of this theory. It takes a little while to explain but I’ll try to give you guys the gist of it.

Basically in mainstream physics there are four fundamental forces (or interactions) of nature:

1. Gravity - This force acts between all mass in the universe and it has infinite range.

2. Electromagnetism - This acts between electrically charged particles. Electricity, magnetism, and light are all produced by this force and it also has infinite range.

3. The Strong Force - This force binds neutrons and protons together in the cores of atoms and is a short range force.

4. Weak Force - This causes Beta decay (the conversion of a neutron to a proton, an electron and an antineutrino) and various particles (the “strange” ones) are formed by strong interactions but decay via weak interactions (that’s what’s strange about “strangeness”). Like the strong force, the weak force is also short range.

The weak and electromagnetic interactions have been unified under electroweak theory (Glashow, Weinberg, and Salaam were awarded the Nobel Prize for this in 1979). Grand unification theories attempt to treat both strong and electroweak interactions under the same mathematical structure.

So three of the four fundamental interaction have been mostly unified, but attempts to include gravitation in this picture have not yet been successful.

Proponents of the Electric Universe Theory believe that gravity is simply another manifestation of the unifying force of nature, which can most easily be seen in terms of the electromagnetic force. Many of the anomalies that we witness in space which can not be readily explained by gravity are easily explained by the acceptance that electricity plays a greater role in our universe than we currently believe.

One of the things that piqued my interest in this theory was that these guys believe that Mars was destroyed by a massive electric storm, the energy from which was supplied by a giant comet. The evidence they showed for this event were several features on Mars which they claim bear unique structures and patterns which are not readily explained by any mainstream theories.

The following picture is a topographic map of Mars. The lower elevation are in blue and the higher elevations are in red, the extremely high elevations are in white.

The Valles Marineris is the giant scar you can see on the equator of the planet. The Electric Universe proponents compare it to a barred-spiral galaxy. Barred-spiral galaxies make up roughly 1/3 of all galaxies that we can see in space, and the are named thusly because the center of them appears to be a bar, and at the edges of the bar the spiraling arms extend and wrap around the rest of the galaxy.

You can see that a mountain range extends from the western end of the canyon, leads south and wraps around to meet back at the middle of the canyon. On the eastern end of the canyon a valley leads to the north and wraps around to also meet back at the middle. This creates a figure-eight formation, which can also bee seen here in a zoom-up of the canyon:

If you look even closer at the canyon you can see that the western end appears to be “concave down,” meaning that the southern edge is flatter and the northern edge is rounded, while on the eastern end the canyon appears to be “concave up.”

I was just wondering what the Dopers would think of this. I searched for “Electric Universe” but didn’t pull up any threads on it that I could dig up so I thought I’d start one.

[DanBlather]

Many of the anomalies that we witness in space which can not be readily explained by gravity

What specifically? This all sound like a bunch of crap.

[smurfslappa]

@DanBlather

What specifically? This all sound like a bunch of crap.

The rings of Saturn for one. How the rings survived in such a concentric state for millions of years is baffling. Certainly a rogue asteroid or comet could have knocked them out of place, and there just aren’t two or three major rings like most think but many, many more rings inside the larger rings themselves.

Such an image of Saturn has been recreated in a lab with electricity almost a hundred years ago.

There are also other examples but this one stood out to me the most.

[Indistinguishable]

Give concrete claims (presumably with specific equations) or there’s nothing to talk about.

[smurfslappa]

@Indistinguishable

Give concrete claims (presumably with specific equations) or there’s nothing to talk about.

You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I’m not a scientist and I haven’t devoted my life to the research of this subject. It’s just a hobby, really.

[Indistinguishable]

It’s not animus against you personally. I’m just saying, as a general heuristic for differentiating genuine scientific work from crankery and woo-woo, look for concrete claims, often expressed via mathematical formalizations. If they cannot be proffered for some proposed theory, then there is little reason to take it seriously.

[Der_Trihs]

Not a chance. We know a great deal about what electricity can and can’t do. Along with gravity and the rest.

This sounds like standard pseudoscience. My guess is someone doesn’t like the other forces, and wanted to force the universe into a mold where only electricity matters. Like the kind of crackpot who tries to create a version of physics that only uses arithmetic, because they hate more complex mathematics.

@smurfslappa

The rings of Saturn for one. How the rings survived in such a concentric state for millions of years is baffling. Certainly a rogue asteroid or comet could have knocked them out of place, and there just aren’t two or three major rings like most think but many, many more rings inside the larger rings themselves.

They are shaped and held in place by gravity. Besides the evidence for that, there’s the problem that if they WERE shaped by electromagnetic forces, we’d have detected it easily with our probes. Electromagnetism isn’t something we have any difficulty detecting, after all.

And a rogue asteroid or comet would just fly on through; they aren’t solid.

[DanBlather]

@smurfslappa

The rings of Saturn for one. How the rings survived in such a concentric state for millions of years is baffling. Certainly a rogue asteroid or comet could have knocked them out of place, and there just aren’t two or three major rings like most think but many, many more rings inside the larger rings themselves.

Can you provide a cite (rather than an assertion) that present scientific theory can’t explain Saturn’s rings?

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@smurfslappa

these guys believe that Mars was destroyed by a massive electric storm, the energy from which was supplied by a giant comet.

Funny – I thought I saw Mars reflected in the sky earlier this week.

For a planet that “was destroyed”, it still seems to be there.

[Bytegeist]

I’m not an expert in these things, but from what I understand, the Valles Marineris is thought to have a more ordinary, geological origin.

The hot, rising material tends to push the surface of the planet up, and the cold, sinking material tends to pull the surface down. These motions contribute to the overall topography of the planet. […] The actual uplift in Tharsis is estimated to be about 8 kilometers (5 miles) at its center. This uplift also stretches the crust, forming features such as grabens and Valles Marineris. […]

Valles Marineris was not produced by water flow (although many smaller Martian channels were). Instead, it appears to have formed by a stretching and tearing of the Martian crust during the Tharsis plume upwelling event.

There is also this that might be interesting.

The purpose of the paper is to propose an origin of Valles Marineris and contiguous features such as Noctis Labyrinthus, chaotic terrain, and the large channels of Mars. These are found to: (1) be continuous to each other, (2) have gradual transition between the morphologies, (3) be related by tectonic fracturing, and associated with features of possible magmatic origin. A model is presented in which the geological process is a magmatic process, and after initial uplift and fracturing, Valles Marineris, Noctis Labyrinthus and some chaotic terrain were produced by subsidence caused by lava withdrawal.

@smurfslappa

The rings of Saturn for one. How the rings survived in such a concentric state for millions of years is baffling.

If you’re talking about the “separateness” of the rings, the main reason for the gaps between them is orbital resonance. Orbital periods that have a simple rational ratio with the periods of Saturn’s nearby moons cannot last for long. See here, here, and here for some more detail.

@smurfslappa

Certainly a rogue asteroid or comet could have knocked them out of place, and there just aren’t two or three major rings like most think but many, many more rings inside the larger rings themselves.

As Der Trihs says, the rings are not solid structures. They look like that from a distance, but they are really just kajillions of boulders of ice and rock, all in their own orbits. A passing asteroid might collide with a few of them, and slightly disturb the orbits of a few more, but wouldn’t substantially alter the rings’ shape, size, or appearance overall.

[smurfslappa]

@t-bonham@scc.net

Funny – I thought I saw Mars reflected in the sky earlier this week.

For a planet that “was destroyed”, it still seems to be there.

Well just the surface really. I’m not saying it’s not there. Come on…

@DanBlather

Can you provide a cite (rather than an assertion) that present scientific theory can’t explain Saturn’s rings?

I was reading up on some stuff that NASA had to say about it and I came across this:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/EP-177/ch2-3-2.html

@hq.nasa.gov

The intricate baffling detail of Saturn’s rings are spread out in this computer-enhanced view taken by Voyager 1 at a distance of 8 million kilometers (5 million miles). At least 95 separate rings are clearly shown, far to many to be explained by our current theories of simple gravitational forces between Saturn’s nearby moons and the ring particles. At the upper left, the thin outer F-ring appears as a narrow curved streak beqond the main body of the rings. The tiny dot nearby is a small moon discovered by Voyager 1, one of a pair that seems to act like shepherds, keeping the thin F-rin in place.

It’s not exactly saying we don’t understand them at all but you can read it yourself. Something is keeping the rings in perfect order, maybe gravity maybe not.

There was one interesting fact pointed out about the radiation belts of Saturn: that they can “hop” over the rings without being absorbed by them.

Cassini Hears Puzzling Lightning at Saturn

@Space.com

“This new radiation belt had eluded detection by any of the spacecraft that previously visited Saturn,” said Donald Mitchell, who works on the magnetospheric imaging instrument out of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “With its discovery we have seen something that we did not expect, that radiation belt particles can ‘hop’ over obstructions like Saturn’s rings, without being absorbed by the rings in the process.”

What is it about the rings that can cause this to happen if they are held in place by gravity alone?

[smurfslappa]

@Bytegeist

I’m not an expert in these things, but from what I understand, the Valles Marineris is thought to have a more ordinary, geological origin.

I am familiar with the cooling crack hypothesis. But the symmetry of the features of the Valles Marineris are what sold me on the electric theory for its origin. The figure eight pattern and the spiraling arms, as well as the concave shape of the west and eastern halves of it.

[smurfslappa]

@Indistinguishable

It’s not animus against you personally. I’m just saying, as a general heuristic for differentiating genuine scientific work from crankery and woo-woo, look for concrete claims, often expressed via mathematical formalizations. If they cannot be proffered for some proposed theory, then there is little reason to take it seriously.

Math is not my forte, really. I completed calculus in high school but never really continued it beyond that. I’m more of a medical guy with a background in anatomy. I just look this stuff up on the side. So any arguments that might be floating around in the scientific community with “my math is better than yours” as the topic would fly right over my head.

But I can still understand that the math should follow what we see anyway, and that it just provides a deeper understanding for our observations. Observation is our first step to understanding the world the world around us, and as such, probably plays the greatest role in this endeavor.

[RaftPeople]

Waves in rings caused by a moon in the rings:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/11/saturns-rings-do-the-wave/

[DanBlather]

@smurfslappa

Well just the surface really. I’m not saying it’s not there. Come on…

I was reading up on some stuff that NASA had to say about it and I came across this:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/EP-177/ch2-3-2.html
It’s not exactly saying we don’t understand them at all but you can read it yourself. Something is keeping the rings in perfect order, maybe gravity maybe not.

There was one interesting fact pointed out about the radiation belts of Saturn: that they can “hop” over the rings without being absorbed by them.

Cassini Hears Puzzling Lightning at Saturn | Space
What is it about the rings that can cause this to happen if they are held in place by gravity alone?

I don’t see anything in those cites that would cause us to re-think gravity. Why would substituting electricity for gravity make it more or less likely for the radiation belts to “hop across” the rings?

[DanBlather]

@smurfslappa

I am familiar with the cooling crack hypothesis. But the symmetry of the features of the Valles Marineris are what sold me on the electric theory for its origin. The figure eight pattern and the spiraling arms, as well as the concave shape of the west and eastern halves of it.

What makes you think “electricity” would produce more symmetry? Look at thispicture.

[Chronos]

Yes, there are certainly things that can’t be explained under our current understanding of physics. There’s no point in saying that, since everyone knows it’s true. The question isn’t whether our current understanding of physics can explain those things; it’s whether the new model you’re proposing can do any better. Just saying “It’s electric!” isn’t any better than saying “It’s magic!”. And this so-called “electric universe theory” not only can’t explain any more than our current theories can; it can’t explain anything at all.

[DagNation]

You all are being way to harsh! You gotta see the video. My friend showed it to me a while back. There is cool spacey music and images that vaguely go along with what the guy says. It is all gibberish, but if you don’t listen too close, or have not read way too much discover magazine, it almost makes sense.

Just be glad people are trying science-y stuff instead of magic or aliens. It is a step in the right direction.

Seriously though, is there a place that lists the fallacies with this, like the anti-zeitgeist web site page that I had to show a different friend? The BS goes so fast and furious that I could not give a decent critique, and that was just the stuff that I could say was BS - there was lots of other stuff I don’t know enough about to dispute.

This should be the science arm of the zeitgeist people - it is done in a very similar way (production style, BS factor).

[Frylock]

OP, here’s your post briefly summarized:

I’ve heard that A can’t be explained by B.
There’s this alternative, C, that’s not compatible with B.
I bet C is true!

What problems do you see with that line of reasoning?

[DrCube]

Okay, I’m lost.

I’m aware of the electroweak force, its relationship to the strong force, and the distant possibility of uniting them with gravity.

But what does that have to do with the geology of Mars? How are the rings of Saturn “electrical”? Somebody needs to put the pieces together for me, because I’m stumped.