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Tommysun's mess

Hey, Tommysun, would you clean up your edits?! Point 1, there are duplications that I can't make heads nor tails of. Point 2, they are much too long to figure out what your main points are. If you want us (or me, at least) to pay attention, pick your most important points and express them tersely. You can back them up if needed later, either in the Talk or, perhaps better, on a private page to which you can reference. --Art Carlson 09:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I cleaned it up. Now read this straight from the first paragraph of the article.

Advocates of plasma cosmology have offered explanations for the large scale structure and evolution of the universe, from galaxy formation to the cosmic microwave background by invoking electromagnetic phenomena associated with laboratory plasmas.

Are you telling me that this sentence is: a. gramatically correct? b. factually accurate? c. not misleading?

First of all, "large scale structure" is a singular "while evolution of the universe" is a universal. They should not be placed together the way that they are in the article. "From galasy formation to the cosmic microwave background", is a phrase and requires a comma, beginning and end. And "invoking electromagnetic phenomena associated with laboratory plasmas" is referring to the laws of scale, which, I notice, is not even mentioned in the article.Tommysun 17:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

1. Singular and universal. I looked up some descriptions of a rule called "parallel construction", and all the bad examples to be avoided were a lot worse than this one. "Structure" and "evolution" are both nouns. I don't think that "evolution of the universe" is a universal because there is only one known example. "Evolution" is a noun form of a verb, so maybe "structure" could change to something like "organization", but I can't think of a rewording that would create more clarity than it would remove. Can you? You didn't propose a solution. This objection is very picky for someone whose previous post misspells "grammatically" and "galaxy", and misplaces the quote mark before "while" that should go before "evolution".
Are there rules for the talk pages too? Singular and universal are Poppers terms for specific and general. Singular is a specific something while universal is meant to apply to several if not all instances. So the sentence mentions a specific, then a universal and then two more specifics. At the least the specifics should be grouped together. The sentence should read something like

Advocates of plasma cosmology have offered explanations for the evolution of the universe, from the cosmic microwave background, to galaxy formation, and to large scale structure.

I question this statement, as it is, because it does not tell us if there are other explanations or not. Are these elaborated on in the text? And I do believe that using the phraseology "Adovocates of plasma cosmology" establishes a POV, and if so, then those advocates ought to be allowed to state their point of view. If not, then "advocates" should be removed.

Popper is new to me, but I still don't think "evolution of the universe" is a universal because there is only one known example: the known universe. More importantly, I had to keep reading your sentence over and over again to try to get it to go together for me, so therefore I prefer the existing sentence, although I'm not a revert warrior or anything. I was puzzled by the question if there are other explanations in the text - the alternative to plasma cosmology advocates is of course the big bang, which is linked. Yes, the word "advocates" labels the sentence as a pro-plasma cosmology sentence. That is one of many sentences in which plasma cosmologists are indeed allowed to state their point of view. The question is whether they get enough opportunity for their point of view. Art LaPella 03:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


and

2. The comma after "background". I agree the sentence would at least be clearer that way. So instead of making any more speeches about it, I'm adding the comma. If you made such changes yourself, I'm sure ScienceApologist wouldn't revert them (well, almost sure).
Thank you!
3. Electromagnetic phenomena associated with the laboratory assume the laws of scale, which aren't mentioned in the article. They also assume the laws of arithmetic, which also aren't mentioned. I must be missing something here. Art LaPella 22:15, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I've never seen plasma work with arithmetic so I don't understand your point. Scaling is not just something one can assume everyone else knows, it perhaps one of the most singular characteristics of plasma. It is an extremely important aspect of plasma physics. It is important because it means that what goes on in the laboratory can be extrapolated to the galactic without error. It means that if over-unity energies can be produced in the lab, then galaxies probably are able to do that too. That is exactly what astronomers observe.
My point about arithmetic was that plasma obeys Maxwell's equations, which assume knowledge of algebra, which assumes arithmetic, but we don't explain all of that so we don't necessarily need to explain the scale issue for that reason. Having thought about it more and looked through the article, a more thoughtful response would be that the scaling argument should indeed be in the article because it keeps coming up. But scaling is in the article - just search the article for the letters "scal" and see how often they come up. Arguing that your side doesn't get enough say, would be more convincing if you didn't keep exaggerating your opposition. Art LaPella 03:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Plasma was at work long before Maxwell formulated his equations.

Most "laboratory plasmas" came after, and anyway my main point above was to refute this: "the laws of scale, which, I notice, is not even mentioned in the article." Art LaPella 19:04, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I have replied to Joshua's reverts above (way above by now). Tommysun, you should check on "history" to see if mine was the last revert. If it is, make your changes to that version. Then you can revert to that version by going to history, clicking on the right version and then clicking on "edit". You can then edit and save that version. Consult the wiki directions if you have trouble.Elerner 18:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Already I have had problems making edits when someone else is also making edits at the same time.
I have replied to Eric's reverts above (way above by now). Eric has continued to ignore my requests. He is a POV-pusher and is well on his way to a Misplaced Pages ban if he keeps it up. --ScienceApologist 19:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Who are you? Are you the owner of WP? I want to make that same claim about you.

I submit that ScienceApologist is pushing the big bang POV.

At least Eric is in the right place. SA, you really should go somewhere else, anywhere else, because it is clear that you do not belong here. Nor are you wanted here. Why don't you learn your science from those you admire. Science, contrary to popular belief, moves forward by working togethe. Competition and survival of the fittest in the human body is like cancer - tough to beat, devastating, and in the end, suicidal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tommysun (talk • contribs) .

Tommysun, you are new here. Before you start telling other people what to do, why not learn some basic Misplaced Pages conventions? Among these are talk page etiquette: don't edit other people's comments, even to move them around, and always sign your comments, which you can do by typing four tildes: ~~~~. Also, consider this: you don't apppear to know what you're talking about. Many of the things you've mentioned, such as dark energy stars, quantized redshifts and outflows from galaxies have, so far as I can see, absolutely nothing to do with plasma cosmology. This page is not intended – correct me if I'm wrong Eric – to be a hodgepodge of big bang kvetching. Finally, don't quote so prolifically from external sources. Nobody wants to see all that on the talk page, and we can perfectly well follow links if you provide them. –Joke 02:45, 10 March 2006

So, I see the whole gang from the big bang pages is over here on the other side... What is a dark energy star? Quantized redshift means no expansion, no expansion means no big bang, no big bang means plasma cosmology is the future, and more than just of historical interest which all of you let slip by. Very clever you are. But not smart enough. And don't tell me I should act like you. No one knows what they are talking about, if they did, they wouldn't have to talk about it. There's a lot of people who know what I am talking about. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tommysun (talk • contribs) .

You linked to the Chapline paper about dark energy stars (that supposedly shows black holes do not exist). The rest of your comments make no sense. –Joke 01:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Never thought for even a second that they would make sense to many of you.

Corrections needed:

1. Advocates of plasma cosmology have offered explanations for the large scale structure and evolution of the universe,

Evolution of the universe is redundant in this sentence. "Proposed" is a better term than is "offered". I have never read a scientific papers that "offered" a position.

Evolution of the universe is a process, large scale structure is a result, so where is the redundance? Either "proposed" or "offered" would be OK with me, although "proposed" is more pro-plasma cosmology. Any paper "offers" a position as defined by dictionary.com: "To present for acceptance or rejection; proffer: offered me a drink." Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC) 
::2. by invoking electromagnetic phenomena associated with laboratory plasmas.

What the original authors were talking about is called "scaling." The phrase "invoking" is not appropriate.

"Invoking" gets the picture across to me, although replacing it with "scaling" would work too. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
3. Plasma cosmology is considered by both proponents and critics to be a non-standard cosmology.

The use of the term "standard cosmology" itself is not NPOV.

What's the alternative, "protoscience"? "Non-standard cosmology" sounds more NPOV than that. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
4. Plasma, electrically conducting gas in which electrons are stripped away from atoms and can move freely,

Electricity is the movement of free electrons too.

Maybe it should say the ions are flowing, but I'll let the scientists handle that one. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
And here is how they handle it ---Ionized gases, liquids, and solids are weak examples of plasmas. The former, ionized gases, have been extensively studied in the laboratory. However, while ionized gases belong to the plasma family, plasmas are not ionized gases. This fact leads to misconceptions in the nature of plasmas in space and the universe. To parapharse Timothy Eastman:

Plasmas are for Everyone. Gases and plasmas are distinct states of matter. The fluids states of gas and liquid are treated with the Navier-Stokes equation whereas plasmas are treated with the Boltzmann and Maxwell equations. The term plasma is for everyone and not just for specialists.Plasma is defined as a partially or fully ionized medium which exhibits collective effects due to interactions with electric and magnetic fields.Often, the solar wind is described as a "vast stream of ions" (neglecting electrons and the fields), strongly implying (incorrectly) a Navier-Stokes fluid. Plasmas are not simply a type of gas. Let's be more accurate and recognize as well that plasmas are for everyone. Found at http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/NoPlasma.html

Sounds plausible. Are you proposing a specific edit yet? Art LaPella 02:12, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
5. Astrophysicists agree that electromagnetic effects are important in stars, galactic discs, quasars and active galactic nuclei but in the standard big bang model the formation of structure is dominated by gravitational effects

Amazing how twisting the language around can change the POV

Sounds fine to me. Once again, your alternative is ...? Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

6. Plasma cosmology advocates assert that the universe has no beginning,

If true then plasma and cosmolgy do not belong together.

Why not? Dictionary.com says cosmology is "The study of the physical universe considered as a totality of phenomena in time and space", not necessarily a study of a beginning. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
7. Since the universe is nearly all plasma, electromagnetic forces are equal in importance with gravitation on all scales .

How does "nearly all" imply "equal" importance?

It argues for electromagnetic importance, from a plasma cosmology POV - arguing about which is more important sounds like a semantic mess. Once again, what's your alternative? Do plasma cosmologists say electromagnetic forces are more important? Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
8. Since we never see effects without causes, we have no reason to assume an origin in time for the universe — an effect without a cause.

When did "NOW" begin?

"NOW" is a moment, and the word isn't in the statement. I must be missing something. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
9. Since every part of the universe we observe is evolving, it assumes that the universe itself is evolving as well.

This is not correct. Some parts of the universe do not "evolve."

Like black holes? Depends on what time scale you mean. See Ultimate fate of the universe. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
10. Plasma cosmology was first developed by Swedish physicist Hannes Alfvén together with Oskar Klein, Per Carlqvist and Carl-Gunne Fälthammar beginning in 1962.

This poorly written.

I tried interchanging some phrases without improving anything. Once again, I can't guess what change you had in mind. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
11. While plasma cosmology has never had the support of most of astronomers or physicists

Also poorly written.

Ditto, although the second "of" should be deleted when the page is unprotected. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
12. These physicists have proposed theories and hypotheses which explain the basic features of the universe with models that rely on plasma physics

Poorly written. How does one "propose" a "hypothesis"? A "theory" is proposed, hypothesis are stated.

I agree that "propose" and "hypothesis" redundantly imply uncertainty, but again, what's the alternative? "proposed theories and stated hypotheses" obscures more clarity than it adds. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The entire article is poorly written OR, it is cleverly slanted by twisting the language around such that what is being stated becomes confused thereby disabling the point being made.

Of course this is a slant war waged on both sides. What else is new? Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
13. Although their theories are not accepted by the majority of cosmologists, proponents have argued that they explain observations more easily, without introducing the "new physics" seen in the big bang theory.

Poorly written. I have never seen "easily" used an a scientific publication. Hypothesis are not accepted because the are "more easily". Attributing this confused comment to the "proponents" is insulting among other things.

This is a howler. I seldom read scientific papers but Google Scholar shows 23 times more hits for "easily" than for "cosmology". Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
14. The level of detail in the development of big bang cosmology is not rivalled by that seen in plasma cosmology, evidenced simply by the quantity of scientific papers published regarding either approach.
Also poorly written. A perponderance of advocates does not constitute evidence of proof. As Thomas Kuhn points out in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the prevailing paradigm is supported by the journals until such time it fails and the alternative is then accepted. The quantity of papers published is not evidence of accuracy. It is merely an idicator of who is in control.
It isn't proof, but grant the point it makes: it's harder to poke holes in plasma cosmology than the big bang, simply because the details of plasma cosmology are less defined. Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Also obvious to me, this entry is not populated by the free, but is authoritarian. And the only way to get rid of authoritarianism is by revolution.

Ooh, how violent! You just walked in and told a long-established participant he wasn't wanted, remember? Here, you seem to say it's your job to say the article is poorly written, and it's our job to guess what rewrite would please your majesty, or is that unfair? So, are you sure that a revolution against authoritarianism would be directed against the targets you expect? Art LaPella 01:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Anybody can keep shouting "poorly written", but I can't do much where you don't suggest an alternative. Is it this edit? If so, we need to match your proposed revisions to your individual complaints. I gave up when I found that your complaint number 3 was left uncorrected in your own edit. Art LaPella 19:24, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Widowed references deleted

Two claims made in the article have been patiently waiting references for a month. Eric has been asked to provide them repeatedly. He has not. If someone has references for them, please add them, but at this point, I think that the references need to be readily available or the prose needs to be removed. --ScienceApologist 19:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


I got you friend. Thanks Eric for the tip on "history". As you read, I submitted that ScienceApologist is a big bang supporter whose job is to confuse Plasma Cosmology. This is what I observed when I looked at the history of both the "nonstandard Cosmology" and Big Bang Theory. I observed that none other than ScienceApologist on both lists. This is conflict of interest.
Observe a little further back. Is this Big Bang edit also proof of conflict of interest? All of us were there Art LaPella 04:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is a quote from non standard Cosmology. (I tried to add to this list and it was taken out right away. But anyway...)

"In 1929, Edwin Hubble provided an observational basis for Lemaître's theory. He discovered that, relative to the Earth, the galaxies are receding in every direction at speeds directly proportional to their distance from the Earth. This fact is now known as Hubble's law . Given the cosmological principle whereby the universe, when viewed on sufficiently large distance scales, has no preferred directions or preferred places, Hubble's law suggested that the universe was expanding contradicting the infinite and unchanging static universe scenario developed by Einstein."

This is not technically correct. Hubble did not discover anything. Hubble did not "observe" the so-called Doppler redshift effect. All Hubble did was add the speed of light, "c" to his equation. This created a Doppler redshift. Hubble did not believe that the redshift was Doppler caused. Sandage tells us that to his dying day, Hubble refused to believe that redshift meant expansion. He left it to the experts, he said, and then he maintained his own position. A non-standard point of view. There is no such a thing as "a fact" "known as Hubble's law." The cosmological reshift is an assumption. It is the assumption that "C" belongs in the equations. There never was an observation to indicate this. Redshift is in actuality is only one of n possible solutions. I charge whoever wrote this with acute misrepresentation

Now, how come you are in the history listings of both non-standard and big bang theory? What is it that you contributed to those lists? Tell us what you said about plasma theory over there? And are you the one who wrote "The non-standard theories are of historical interest only." Do you believe that? And who cleverly put "creation theory" (religion) at the top of the scientific list? Did you do that?

All three of these Misplaced Pages entries push Plasma physics to the back. The Universe is held together by gravity, but it works together by EMF which on the galactic scale is what is commonly called "Plasma."

Plasma is not something thing electrons flow through, come on, that's electricity. Plasma IS THE FLOWING of both ion and electrons outside an electrical ohmic conductor. EMF guys.

And about Eric's neutral (never knew that, thanks) atoms, in a plasma flowing, this is actually, in keeping with the principle of scaling, "plasma slurry". Did I spell that right? There is no reference because I just made this up.

Yes, you spelled that correctly. (Others misspell too, but they're no fun to pick on - they don't do non-existent grammar "corrrections" etc.) Art LaPella 06:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOVing and the edits this morning

First of all, thanks to Ian for referencing the first quote. It was sorely needed and now it's done. Was that so hard?

Secondly, I continue to see refusal on the part of Mr. Lerner to address my points. They are, in turn:

  1. According to Misplaced Pages:Summary style and article needs to be on point with its subject material. MHD is introduced in Eric's version of the article as an idea which is then said not to work for plasma cosmology. What's more, there is a laundry list of features that Alfven thought were important for "cosmic plasma" but there is no reference to this. In the interest of summary I removed it, but there was no discussion as to what the rationale was for keeping it other than pc advocates stubbornly claiming it was important without explaining themselves. I respectfully ask here for an explanation.
  2. The Virgo consortium page has a void that is visible on the page of 35 h^-1 MpC observable. That's the same order of magnitude as the largest void known. Therefore the statement is correct and should not be removed.
  3. The statement by Lieu supporting the Big Bang is relevant. There remains no supported reference for a pc advocate using his work to further their own. Without that, we cannnot claim it to be the case.
  4. That the low-l moments are the least well measured is admitted by everyone who is honest in the field.
  5. You cannot state that the development has been hampered without qualifying that it is the advocates who feel that way. It isn't an objective fact.
  6. Advocates of alternative cosmology do include scientists from institutions, but also include unrelated folks who are unaffiliated. There was no criteria for deciding who would sign, so the NPOV way to put it is to refer to them as advocates of alternative cosmologies.

These points all seem very non-controversial to me. I respectfully ask that they be discussed rather than simply reverted.

Thanks,

--ScienceApologist 13:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Moved my comment to the Change 4 section below. Jon 01:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I can answer the first point. Regarding , Alfvén and co-author Carl-Gunne Fälthammar, wrote in their book Cosmical Electrodynamics (1952, 2nd Ed.): "It should be noted that the fundamental equations of magnetohydrodynamics rest on the assumption that the conducting medium can be considered as a fluid. This is an important limitation, for if the medium is a plasma it is sometimes necessary to use a microscopic description in which the motion of the constituent particles is taken into account. Examples of plasma phenomena invalidating a hydromagnetic description are ambipolar diffusion, electron runaway, and generation of microwaves". In other words, MHD may not lead to correct results when applied to low-density cosmic plasmas."

I suppose that a loose analogy would be the use of Newtonian physics to get a spacecraft to Mars, but that you need to introduce Einstein when speeds approach that of light. In other words, MHD (what Alfvén called a magnetic field description) often works, but sometime you need to use an electric field description, to model other phenomenon. There is an extension of MHD called Hall-MHD which is takes the electric field description into account.

As for the laundary list, let's put it back for now, add a reference, and I'll find one over the weekend. --Iantresman 15:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Ian, I understand the distinction between MHD and what plasma cosmology tries to do. To use your analogy, it would be like including information on Newtonian physics in the Big Bang page even though it is based on GR. We should exclude MHD because PC doesn't use it. --ScienceApologist 20:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Plasma cosmologists use magnetohydrodynamics where it is applicable, but unlike others, don't use it where it is not applicable. See Astrophysical plasma characteristics, and in particular, the table by Hannes Alfvén and Carl-Gunne Fälthammar, adapted from their book Cosmical Electrodynamics, where the suitability of magnetohydrodynamics is shown for different types of space plasmas. --Iantresman 21:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Ian, do you have a source for the claim that there are others who use MHD where it is not applicable? Unless you can point to this, there is no case to be made for the inclusion of such an opinion. --ScienceApologist 22:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we claim this in the article? --Iantresman 13:30, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
The pseudoplasma error is held up as a starting point for plasma cosmology, so we effectively do claim this. --ScienceApologist 15:15, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
If you are referring to the statement "Alfvén devoted a large portion of his Nobel address to attacking this “pseudo plasma” error.", then I claim his Nobel address as a citation. --Iantresman 18:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Including the material on Alfven and MHD is important because it informs the historical development of plasma cosmology. It is the same as including (for example) a brief description of Newton to help explain how Relativity was developed, or describing continental drift to explain plate tectonics. Jon 23:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

It also doesn't actually matter what Lieu believes or what he concluded. The important point is that his data supports a plasma cosmology prediction. Eric (rightly and respectfully) does not discuss what Lieu concluded from his data because that is actually irrelevant to the point in question. Just because two people see the same numbers and conclude two separate things based on what they believe to be true, doesn't mean Lieu's paper cannot be referenced for the data it contains. Just because it sticks in Joshua's craw is no reason for him to censor it from this article. Jon 00:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It also doesn't actually matter what Lieu believes or what he concluded. The important point is that his data supports a plasma cosmology prediction. Eric (rightly and respectfully) does not discuss what Lieu concluded from his data because that is actually irrelevant to the point in question. -- but since there is no citation to someone using that data to support a plasma cosmology prediction, this smack of original research. --ScienceApologist 12:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

From WP entry "Plasma (physics) "The dynamics of plasmas interacting with external and self-generated magnetic fields are studied in the academic discipline of magnetohydrodynamics." Tommysun 08:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Eric, van Flandern pointed out to me that the concept of a beginning is not necessarily a necessary in astronomy. I've been thinking about that and I wonder if the words "Plasma" and "cosmology" actually belong together.Would you email me please? I have a couple of things I would like t discuss with you.Tommysun 09:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


Joshua has obtained protection of his version of the article. I am requesting unprotection of this page. I responded fully to Joshua(ScienceAplogist) continued reverts on the talk page. This response has been now moved to the archive since it was before March 9. Protection has simply served to take ScienceApologist's side. He is unsupported in his changes by anyone else's edits. He is getting his way as a minority of one by continually reverting and now getting the page protected with his changes in place.Elerner 05:13, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Eric, there is an easy way to get protection taken off. Discuss my edits with me. I implore you as a fellow Wikipedian. --ScienceApologist 13:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I charge you with dereliction of duty and conflict of interest ScienceApologist, You are not a true scientist by any means. What you do is illegal.

Ref: "Administrators have the ability to "protect" pages or images so that they cannot be modified except by other admins (the link "Edit this page" is replaced by a link "View source" when viewed by non-admins). This ability is only to be used in limited circumstances." and it continues with-- "Admins must not protect pages they are actively engaged in editing, except in the case of simple vandalism."

source http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Protected_page

Tommysun 19:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

populated by big bang proponents

Quoting from big bang entry--

"Frequently, people come on to this talk page and tell many of the regular editors of the big bang article that their theory is phisophically misguided, unfalsifiable, Ptolemaic, or already falsified. I can assure you that it is none of these things." –Joke 19:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Trust me...

"The fox guarding the hen"

The big bang as an explosion of matter has been falsified, that's why they came up with inflation which is unfalsifiable, all 21 versions of them...And you won't discuss or even acknowledge the Tifft redshift. Why? Because without Doppler redshift there is no evidence of expansion and without expansion there was no big bang. And without the big bang all that is left is plasma. Tifft redshift is not going away guys, in spite of your efforts to delete it. Some day your big bang bag of hot air is going to burst and the likes of you will turn out to be the laughing stock of the century. The sad part is that you, and all the big bang gang, may take science down with you.

Tommysun 06:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Can we tone down the conspiracy hysteria and focus on debating the science? Jon 10:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

and here is the proof ==

from http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Big_Bang/Archive3

If you read the opening sentence it clearly states that the "Big Bang is the scientific theory that describes the early development and shape of the universe". No other idea from inside or outside the scientific establishment that has been put forward does that. The now discredited steady state model doesn't do it, and neither do the protestations of Halton Arp, et al. or the plasma cosmology folks. The Big Bang is a paradigmatic formalism in cosmology, similar to the way in which Maxwell's Equations as "the set of four equations, attributed to James Clerk Maxwell, that describe the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields, as well as their interactions with matter". Even though there are those people who think some parts of Maxwell's Equations are wrong (magnetic monopoles for example, may exist), we still use the definitive article because that is the way science works. You can peruse the science pages here on wikipedia for myriad more examples. True scientific theories, by definition, don't lend themselves to concessions of plurality because there can be only one theory available that describes the observations. In the case of the Big Bang, it (and nothing else) is the one theory available that describes the observations. This has nothing to do with being "neutral", it has to do with reporting the facts about a scientific theory and its applicability to the natural universe. Joshuaschroeder 14:00, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

And who is Joshuaschroeder but --User:ScienceApologist

Tommysun 20:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Please! I just want someone to talk about my edits! --ScienceApologist 13:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


Ridiculous--you know I've replied at length. Here is the exchange again:

Cleaning up Joshua's mess

I re-instated again the early history of PC which traces to Aflven's pointing out the limitations of MHD. I put back in "big bang theory" since the theory itself relies on new physics, such as inflation and baryon non conservation to be even vaguely consistent with obervations. I replaced Lieu's interpretation of his own data in his own paper, while eliminating Joshua's unverifiable quote.

I also eliminated Joshua's unfactual description of the open letter on cosmology. A glance at the signers list will show that it can not be described as 'plasma cosmology advocates". Would that there were several hundred of those! But there are not.

I'll return to the GR reference next time I'm at the library. No doubt we will now have a series of reverts by Joshua.Elerner 03:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, I also removed the refernce to "largest voids" since the reference given does not refer to them. And I changed "most astronmers" believe WMAP problems are due to foreground to "some astronomers" becauses there is no reference to a peer-reviewed poll of astronomers and the issue is clearly actively debated with lots of papers on both sides.Elerner 03:23, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Response to Eric's rationale and why I reinstated everything but one point:

* o + I don't mind the early history including Alfven's ideas about the "limitations" of MHD, but the prose did not indicate this and rather seemed to indicate that MHD was somehow part of plasma cosmology. Since it is really separate I removed the prose, and will try to instate sentences that indicate a divergeance from Alfven's much more famous ideas.

The prose is quite clear that the later work came out of Alfven's clear recognition of the limitations of the MHD approach, which he had developed. Anyone who is literate can see that.EL

Too bad the prose is irrelevant. EL ignores my point again. --ScienceApologist 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The prose is only irrelevant in your opinion. It seems perfectly relevant to a description of plasma cosmology to me. Please describe here for our benefit why you think it is irrelevant. Jon 14:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The point is that we are writing according to Misplaced Pages:Summary style. There is no reason to include MHD here especially because pc advocates explicitly don't use it. --ScienceApologist 18:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

* o + It's the Lambda-CDM model that relies on new physics. The Big Bang itself is strictly a GR-based expanding FLRW metric.

Nope, the Big bang includes inflation, which is new physics. Without inflation the Big Bang predicts a grossly anisotropic CBR because of the horizon problem and would be in gross contradiction to observations. Also the Big Bang requires baryon non-conservation, which is new physics. Otherwise nearly everything would have annihilated itself. EL

Nope, the Big bang need not include inflation. Besides expanded versions of Lambda-CDM include parameters for inflation as well. --ScienceApologist 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

* o + The quote is totally verifiable as stated in WP:V.

Your quote refers to an entirely different paper by Lieu on a completely different subject. EL

Ostriker-Vishniak vs. Sunyaev-Zeldovich, touche. However, the gesture is later and the same: Lieu believes the Big Bang. --ScienceApologist 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

* o + Many of the people on the list aren't even astronomers and some aren't scientists. The ones that we are interested with for this page are the plasma cosmology advocates.

Ridiculous. Read the list. An insignificant fraction have ever commented about plasma cosmology. Here are some of the institutions that signatories are associated with; Armenzano Observatory; Astronomical Institute, St. Petersburg State University; Danish Space Research Institute; Escola Municipal de Astrofísica, Brazil ; European Southern Observatory; Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics; High Altitude Observatory, NCAR ; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica ; Max-Planck-Institute Fur Astrophysik; Observatoire de Lyon; Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Service d'Astrophysique, CEA; Space Research Institute, Russia; Special Astrophysical Observatory of RAS; Università di Bari ; Cambridge University; College de France; Cornell University; Indian Institute of Technology; Padua University; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Jet Propulsion Laboratory--EL

Ridiculous snowballing. Many of the people who signed haven't ever taken an astronomy class in college -- the list is a meaningless charade. --ScienceApologist 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

* o + The reference given does refer to voids of the order of magnitude of the largest.

Absolutely not true. Provide a quote. I read these references. --EL

Then you missed the fact that their voids were dozens of megaparsecs in length? --ScienceApologist 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

* o + The foreground arguments regarding low-ls seem to have the preponderance of papers in the community. There are astonishingly few papers written arguing that this represents a problem for vanilla banana. I often get the impression that Eric is a selective reader of the journals. Not surprising, but this kind of advocacy shouldn't be tolerated as an editorial excuse.

Prove it. Count the papers. There are tons that say the non-Gaussianity is in the real data and can't be MW contamination. Also, for your sentence to be true, it would have to be the opinion of "most astronomers" not most people who have published papers in the field. But it is not true in either case. --EL

Well, of the last 15 or so I read on astro-ph in the last year, I can recall less than half making a claim that the CMB is a local phenomenon because of this. --ScienceApologist 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Therefore, I reverted since Eric has made some rather underhanded reverts as per his usual "game-playing". Please address the issues I outlined above rather than reverting from the hip. Talking about these things is always better than edit warring.:--ScienceApologist 14:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

For the above reasons, I have reverted all of Joshua's reverts.Elerner 05:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)"

-- Elerner 03:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)Elerner 17:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


I think you'll notice that the last person to respond to each point was myself. Since then you have opted out of the discussion. --ScienceApologist 18:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Apologetics Colloquial usage Today the term "apologist" is colloquially applied to groups and individuals systematically promoting causes, justifying orthodoxies or denying certain events, even of crimes. Apologists are often characterized as being deceptive, or "whitewashing" their cause, primarily through omission of negative facts (selective perception) and exaggeration of positive ones, techniques of classical rhetoric. When used in this context, the term often has a pejorative meaning. The neutralized substitution of "spokesperson" for "apologist" in conversation conveys much the same sense of "partisan presenter with a weighted agenda," with less rhetorical freight. Tommysun 18:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Administrators have the ability to "protect" pages or images so that they cannot be modified except by other admins (the link "Edit this page" is replaced by a link "View source" when viewed by non-admins). This ability is only to be used in limited circumstances.

source http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Protected_page

and it continues with--

Admins must not protect pages they are actively engaged in editing, except in the case of simple vandalism.

Tommysun 19:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The page was protected by VoiceOfAll, not by an active Plasma Cosmology editor, so how was this rule violated? And even if it was, that would be a violation of Misplaced Pages policy, not the law, so please stop using the reckless word "illegal". Art LaPella 02:12, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


Setting the record straight

Two editors User:Tommysun and User:Elerner refuse to talk about meaningful NPOV edits meant to address concerns associated with the tag. They simply revert my edits and the edit war has persisted. Maybe protection might help? --ScienceApologist 17:04, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

ScienceApologist is wrong. ScienceApologist continually removes MY edits, I do not touch his. I am the one being wronged. ELerner is a plasma cosmologist, well known in his field. He does not support the big bang and has written a book The big bang never happened. ScienceApologist, by his own words, is a supporter of the big bang theory, yet he continually edits Plasma Cosmology such that it appears as a confused and incorrect presentation of the field. If this isn't conflict of interest, then there is no such rule. Misplaced Pages has been described elsewhere as being unreliable. Part of this is due to uneducated edits, I am sure. BUT a part of this unreliability also is the result of parties assuming editorial control on a subject, reverting all edits which they do not agree with. This is what is going on in our case. The end result is that some wikipedia entries have become political. If you read the entries for big bang, non-standard cosmology and plasma cosmology, it becomes obvious that ALL the material fully supports the big bang and subsumes any and all other theories as "historical interest" only. So much for NPOV. Tommysun 04:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I have charged ScienceApologist with conflict of interest. He is, by his own words, a big bang supporter, yet he seems to consider himself in charge of editing the rival theory of Plasma Cosmology. Here is my proof:

from http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Big_Bang/Archive3

"If you read the opening sentence it clearly states that the "Big Bang is the scientific theory that describes the early development and shape of the universe". No other idea from inside or outside the scientific establishment that has been put forward does that. The now discredited steady state model doesn't do it, and neither do the protestations of Halton Arp, et al. or the plasma cosmology folks. The Big Bang is a paradigmatic formalism in cosmology, similar to the way in which Maxwell's Equations as "the set of four equations, attributed to James Clerk Maxwell, that describe the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields, as well as their interactions with matter". Even though there are those people who think some parts of Maxwell's Equations are wrong (magnetic monopoles for example, may exist), we still use the definitive article because that is the way science works. You can peruse the science pages here on wikipedia for myriad more examples. True scientific theories, by definition, don't lend themselves to concessions of plurality because there can be only one theory available that describes the observations. In the case of the Big Bang, it (and nothing else) is the one theory available that describes the observations. This has nothing to do with being "neutral", it has to do with reporting the facts about a scientific theory and its applicability to the natural universe. Joshuaschroeder 14:00, 30 May 2005 (UTC) And who is Joshuaschroeder but --User:ScienceApologist

Interesting, theory A becomes the one theory available,,, (and nothing else), by deleting the observations of Theory B...

Tommysun 04:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

So what didn't you say? I'm pretty sure that means you agree ScienceApologist isn't "illegal". It probably means you also agree the previous heading's policy wasn't violated - VoiceOfAll didn't edit Plasma cosmology, even if ScienceApologist asked for the protection. The rule can't mean that an involved editor can't ask an administrator for protection, because that's the only obvious way for an uninvolved administrator to hear about the need for protection.
As for ScienceApologist's "conflict of interest", the real motives on both sides are complicated and obscured by arcane science, but there's no point trying to explain something so subtle if we can't get past the obvious observations. Once again, the reverse situation happened in November at Big Bang. You haven't said anything to distinguish why the plasma people can try to rewrite Big Bang but Big Bang people can't try to rewrite Plasma cosmology. Art LaPella 06:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Attempt to reach consensus

Hi guys, Voice of All, who froze the page, say that we can edit it if we reach a consensus, which specifically does not have to include Joshua, if the rest of us agree. So I suggest that we agree on Tommysun's last version, with the exception of the definition of plasma. Can I try again here on that: "Plasma is a state of matter where electrons and ions can move freely, and carry currents."? What do the rest think?Elerner 00:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree in the sense that I'm not expressing a preference between ScienceApologist's version and Tommysun's last version, modified as described, and I expect that ScienceApologist will continue to be able to argue for his version. The only change I'm waiting to make is to delete an "of" as described in point #11 above. Art LaPella 01:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Sound good to me. --Iantresman 01:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been avoiding editing this page for a while. I have a few comments:

  • Would Tommysun stop using big words like "illegal", "conflict of interest" and "dereliction of duty" until he has some more experience with Misplaced Pages? They aren't helping. Big bang advocates can edit this page if they damn well want to, just like any other page on Misplaced Pages. The only relevant policies are neutral point of view and verifiability.
  • I certainly don't agree that we should revert to the last version by Tommysun.
  • I think Eric's definition of plasma is fine, except that the phrasing is slightly awkward and comma incorrect.
  • I think changing offered to proposed is fine.
  • I have no opinion on the short list in the cosmic plasma section.
  • As for "including the largest walls and voids" it is a complicated technical issue. Certainly simulations of linear structure seem to work up to those scales, as is seen in the power spectrum. The issue of voids involves the hairy gastrophysics of bias and halo occupation as well as statistical issues involved in defining and identifying voids. This whole argument seems a little specious to me, given that the plasma universe doesn't agree with the SDSS power spectrum, but the standard big bang cosmology does.
  • I don't like either version of the Lieu statement. I suppose it doesn't really matter what Lieu believes now, only that he says the SZ effect is too small and that the plasma cosmologists attribute that to the nearby origin of the CMB. I must say, I find the argument that this has anything to do with plasma cosmology is misleading, given that these cosmologists don't even quantitatively know their predictions for the CMB (i.e. the peak structure). I do wish you would leave the quote in the footnote and merely paraphrase.
  • There is nothing POV about SA's version of the low-l multipole controversy: "Since the low-l multipoles are the ones with the most systematic errors, it has been pointed out that there are likely to be due to uncertainties in the removal of the foreground from the CMB." Surely you can't argue that they aren't the ones with the most systematic errors, when in the big bang model the are plagued by cosmic variance and foreground contamination?
  • I don't like TS/EL's version of the closing paragraph. Words like bias and hampered are intrinsically POV. The sentence "However, many scientists, including those from leading astronomical institutions, have urged that this bias be ended and alternative cosmologies be funded." is awful, because it implies that a lot of scientists from leading astronomical institutions advocate for alternatives to the big bang. Better would be "including some" or something else entirely.

–Joke 01:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Joke on this one including where he questions my versions. Eric's definition of plasma is fine. I would like some discussion on my other points outlined above. In particular, I think we need to decide whether a detailed account of MHD's history is warranted and we need to remove the claim about Lieu's study supporting plasma cosmology if we do not have a verifiable reference. Other than that, I think that my version is pretty much in-line with Joke's suggestions (subject to machniations over voids) but I'm not here to speak for Joke. What is clear is that as of right now we don't have consensus, but at least people are posting to the talkpage, so that's an improvement.
I also think that User:Tommysun needs to read a bit more about Misplaced Pages before going to town with his arguments. As such his support of versions needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I know that Eric and Ian are at least aware of Misplaced Pages policy, but I'm not sure User:Tommysun is. In particular, I don't know if he is aware of WP:OR, WP:V, and WP:NPOV.
--ScienceApologist 02:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with VoA's proposal. I submit that Joshua supports the big bang interpretation and his vote here in Plasma Cosmology should be taken with a grain of salt too. He is right that I know very little about Misplaced Pages, but I do know how to write. I concede that my keyboard doesn't.

I propose that we start at the beginning. The beginning sets the stage so to speak, and it is very important to the reader. It cannot be assumed that a reader is familair with the subject and thus will be able to "read in" the facts appropriately.

For example, the present definition of plasma is actually a definition of electricity. Plasma is different from electricity in that it usually has both ions and electrons flowing as a current without a conductor.

I propose that each proposal up for vote have it's own heading. Therefore, allow me to begin with my suggestion

INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH

Plasma cosmology is a cosmological model based on the electromagnetic properties of astrophysical plasmas. Plasma is a freely flowing electrons and ions. The Universe consists mainly of plasma, which is found in our Sun, the stars, the galaxies, and throughout space. Advocates of plasma cosmology have offered explanations for galaxy formation, the cosmic microwave background, the large scale structure and, in general, the development of the universe. Plasma, as (a)cosmology, is conventionally thought of as a non-standard cosmology as opposed to the standard big bang theory. Tommysun 03:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Won't work. Plasma is not a freely flowing current. 'Plasma (physics)' starts with In physics and chemistry, a plasma is an ionized gas, and is usually considered to be a distinct phase of matter., which is much better. "The Universe consists mainly of plasma, ..." is probably too strong: "Most of the matter in the Universe is thought to be in the plasma state" is better. How about this:
Plasma cosmology is a cosmological model based on the electromagnetic properties of plasma, an ionized state of matter. Most of the matter in the Universe is thought to be in the plasma state. Advocates of plasma cosmology have offered explanations for galaxy formation, the cosmic microwave background, the large scale structure of the Universe, and, in general, the development of the Universe. Plasma cosmology is considered by both proponents and critics to be a non-standard cosmology in competition with the currently better accepted Big Bang cosmology.
zowie 03:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but I'm unclear on the context for the sentence "Most of the matter in the universe is thought to be in the plasma state." Does this have an implicit "In plasma cosmology" at the beginning? Or is it supposed to be a statement of an "uncontroversial" fact accepted even by plasma cosmology's detractors? If the former it should be made clearer, and if the latter, it's misleading because, of course, in the modern cosmological synthesis most of the matter in the universe is dark matter and we have next to no clue about its physical properties (but it can't be a plasma as it doesn't interact through the EM force). "baryonic matter" in place of "matter" would be fine, though. --Bth 11:34, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Well, there you go. Can we really use wikipedia as a source? Read further and they clear it up somewhat. Sorry I cannot trust wikipedia's definition of Plasma. Plasma is not a gas, it is a current flow. You don't fill a neon bulb with plasma.

If it were a gas, then it couldn't be called a fourth state of matter. Are we going to change that notion of a fourth state too? Also, is matter (in general) and plasma the same thing? Tommysun 03:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Plasma is not a current flow. That's just plain wrong. Current can flow in a plasma, but the current flow itself is not a plasma.
The definition of a gas is something that follows gas laws. Plasma follows gas laws (with apologies to certain conduction effects) so I don't see why describing plasma as a gas is so problematic. Would you prefer it if we described it as a "compressible fluid"? --ScienceApologist 03:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you are wrong. Is a neon bulb filled with plasma? Or does plasma flow when you light it? Everyone else calls it a fourth state of matter, why do you want to change that?

On earth we live upon an island of "ordinary" matter. The different states of matter generally found on earth are solid, liquid, and gas. We have learned to work, play, and rest using these familiar states of matter. Sir William Crookes, an English physicist, identified a fourth state of matter, now called plasma, in 1879. Plasma temperatures and densities range from relatively cool and tenuous (like aurora) to very hot and dense (like the central core of a star). Ordinary solids, liquids, and gases are both electrically neutral and too cool or dense to be in a plasma state. Plasma consists of a collection of free-moving electrons and ions - atoms that have lost electrons. Energy is needed to strip electrons from atoms to make plasma. The energy can be of various origins: thermal, electrical, or light (ultraviolet light or intense visible light from a laser). With insufficient sustaining power, plasmas recombine into neutral gas.

from http://www.plasmas.org/rot-plasmas.htm Tommysun 03:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

On Earth, a lot of energy is needed to strip electrons from atoms because the densities are so high, however in space with much lower densities the amount of energy needed to maintain a plasma is miniscule by comparison. When recombination times are larger than ionization times, that's when you get a plasma. Current flow is a totally separate issue. --ScienceApologist 04:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Tommysun, I think SA and I know perfectly well what a plasma is. Perhaps if you are having trouble understanding, and don't find us credible, you should ask one of the users of Misplaced Pages who are professional plasma physicists. At least three come to mind: Art Carlson, Craig DeForest and Eric Lerner. –Joke 04:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

What I have trouble understanding is why are big bang people over here? For that reason I DO NOT FIND SA credible, I am neutral about Joke, and I find Art to be honest. Sometimes, when one is deeply involved in a subject, the obvious gets taken for granted, and subsequently often is ignored. The whole idea of this work is to define plasma and then elaborate. So when the expert defines plasma as "an ionized state of matter" well, believe me, the reader will have no clue about what he means. And doesn't "ionized" exclude electrons, hmmm? Tommysun 05:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I have a friend too...http://www.plasmaphysics.org.uk/#plasma

Plasma: Sometimes called the fourth state of matter, a plasma is far from being a clearly defined physical state and the only common feature in the various situations is that to some degree free charges (i.e. ions and electrons) are present.Generally, one has to distinguish between the microscopic and the collective properties of a plasma. The former are individual particle processes like Coulomb Scattering, Radiative Recombination or Inelastic Collisions, whereas the latter are for instance given by Plasma Polarization Fields, Plasma Oscillations or Debye Shielding. Collective processes can occur only if the Plasma Frequency is higher than the Collision Frequency. Apart from very high volume densities like those encountered in fluids, solids or the interior of stars, this is however usually fulfilled. For the latter example there is the additional property that, due to the high temperature in combination with the high density, no bound electronic states can exist and therefore no radiative processes either.

Tommysun 04:32, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not arguing for "current flow" I have taken that out. What I am arguing is that plasma is not a gas.

Typo patrol on Tommysun's paragraph: 1. Remove the "a" in the second sentence. 2. "as (a)cosmology" should be "as a cosmology" or "as cosmology" - or if the parentheses are accomplishing something I don't see, "as (a) cosmology" (note space). 3. This is not to discourage bigger rewrites or other versions, including the existing version. Art LaPella 05:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

This is not intended as a suggested introduction. But to clarify: Plasmas may be solid (crystaline) as well as gaeous. Plasmas do NOT follow gas laws (although gas laws may sometimes approximate); "Maxwell equations for electromagnetism and the plasma Boltzmann equation are the basic equations for studies of electromagnetic systems of which plasmas are a prime example" . A plasma is a substance in which sufficient atoms or molecules have been ionized allowing charges to flow freely. A partially ionized gas, in which as little as 1% of the particles are ionized, may be considered to be, and behave as a plasma (there are other factors too). For example, a 1% ionized gas may be highly electrically conductive. A plasma may also contain unequal numbers of oppositely charged particles (eg. particle beams). --Iantresman 11:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

A plasma is an ionized gas, in the sense that the component particles interact only via collision and the bulk electromagnetic field. The former yields gas properties; the latter yields MHD. The work at Sandia and UCSD on pure-electron "plasmas" that form quasicrystals is interesting precisely because it explores the limits of what the bulk electromagnetic field can do in the absence of any small-scale electromagentic forces (such as the van der Waals forces that hold together iodine, the hydrogen bonding that holds together liquid water, or the tiny dipole attractions that hold together solid salt). Sorry to be a pedant here, but plasmas are not solid. Matter that retains its shape and has free charge carriers is called a conductor, and does not follow MHD - though its charge carriers might loosely be described as a stabilized plasma (as in the jellium model of the solid state). Neither are plasmas liquid. The main characteristic of a liquid is that it does not retain its shape but does retain its volume due to continuous short-range interactions between its constituent particles. The key here is that the interactions are continuous and short-range, rather than manifestations of the bulk electromagnetic field on scales much larger than the particles themselves.
Folks should not have a conceptual problem with a state of matter being defined in terms of the other ones. For example, many folks here are probably fans of superfluids. The superfluid state is a modified liquid in which the atoms become a Bose-Einstein condensate and hence manifest macroscopic quantum behavior -- just as the plasma state is a modified gas in which the atoms are ionized and hence couple to the electromagnetic field. The whole "state of matter" description is somewhat colorful verbiage anyhow, simply emphasizing that plasmas behave very differently than non-ionized gases. If one is going to be pedantic, "plasma" is better described as a phase of matter, in the same sense that Ice IV is a phase of water -- plasma is just more radically different from the gas phase than Ice IV is from Ice I.
Sorry to be a pedant here -- just trying to keep everything consistent with reality (you know, the stuff outside WP). zowie 14:50, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Voting suggestion

Let me point out that on the current course, we will not get consensus on anything and the article will just be frozen the way Joshua wants it. I suggest that we start by taking each one of Joshua's disputed edits in turn and vote on them. If we get some lopsided votes on some, let's call it consensus and change it. Then we can turn to Tommysun's edits and the definition of plasma and see if we can get a lopsided vote on one definition. I don't know what VOA calls consensus other than it does not mean unanimous and probably does not mean a 3-2 vote. So can people just weigh in on this procedural question? Can we get consensus on that?Elerner 03:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages does not work by means of popularity contests but rather by Misplaced Pages:Consensus. Misplaced Pages:Polls are considered by many people (including myself) to be evil, and I think that we need to be careful in how we use them. --ScienceApologist 04:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Eric, for your suggestion. If this discussion doesn't get some focus I'm just going to scream! Joshua, let's try this. It might work. If we see it developing into Evilness, we can pull the brake. Tommy, slow down! Thank you, Voice, for freezing the page and for (effectively) offering to mediate. I am sure you will regret it. --Art Carlson 08:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I think, SA, what VoA was trying to do is prevent you from stopping us...

Eric, why don't you simply make a list of major headings to be discussed, and then we all can edit/discuss whatever we want whenever we want. It may be useful to include the sentence or paragraph as the first entry under each heading as the working edit.

Tommysun 05:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Well let's try it out, shall we?

As User:ScienceApologist notes, we should take note of this from the Misplaced Pages:Consensus policy page:

Precise numbers for "supermajority" are hard to establish, and Misplaced Pages is not a majoritarian democracy, so simple vote-counting should never be the key part of the interpretation of a debate. When supermajority voting is used, it should be seen as a process of 'testing' for consensus, rather than reaching consensus. The stated outcome is the best judgment of the facilitator, often an admin. If there is strong disagreement with the outcome from the Misplaced Pages community, it is clear that consensus has not been reached. Nevertheless, some mediators of often-used Misplaced Pages-space processes have placed importance on the proportion of concurring editors reaching a particular level. This issue is controversial, and there is no consensus about having numerical guidelines. That said, the numbers mentioned as being sufficient to reach supermajority vary from about 60% to over 80% depending upon the decision, with the more critical processes tending to have higher thresholds. See the pages for RFA, AFD and RM for further discussion of such figures. The numbers are by no means fixed, but are merely statistics reflecting past decisions. Note that the numbers are not binding on the editor who is interpreting the debate, and should never be the only consideration in making a final decision. However, judgment and discretion are applied to determine the correct action. The discussion itself is more important than the statistics. In disputes, the term consensus is often used as if it means anything from genuine consensus to my position; it is possible to see both sides in an edit war claiming a consensus for its version of the article.

Sorry for the large quote, but it is quite relevant :) Jon 11:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Change 1)

Reinstate "Building on the work of Kristian Birkeland,"

Justification: Birkeland was the first to point out the role of cosmic plasma and Alfven did , in his own view, build on Birkeland's work. There is no reason to eliminate this part of PC's history. Who agrees with this change? Who disagrees?

At a guess, I'd say his work in developing the idea of Birkeland currents... Jon 13:39, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
So perhaps the prose is a bit mixed up here. Alfven's work may have been in addition to rather than built directly on Birkeland's work. Thoughts, ideas? --ScienceApologist 00:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Change 2)

Reinstate: "- Alfvén felt that many other characteristics of plasmas played a more significant role in cosmic plasmas.These include:

Justification: This is all described at great length in the Cosmic Electrodynamics book, which is referenced in the notes. Alfven thought these were the most important features of plasma behavior on cosmic scales.Who agrees with this change? Who disagrees?

  • wording is confusing to me, removing "many" sounds better to me anyhow

but agree Tommysun 06:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

  • It's a laundry list of concepts that keep popping up, i.e. are important to plasma cosmologists. Putting it at this location provides some historical perspective. Don't know what's wrong. Leave it in. --Art Carlson 09:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • What I was looking for and was never provided was a context for these attributes. Alfven may have said they were important, but how do Plasma cosmology advocates apply their importance? I see how scalability, double layers, and cellular structure were used, but Birkeland current and critical ionization velocities get no mention anywhere in the article after this as important parts of plasma cosmology advocates ideas. Just because Alfven said they were important doesn't justify inclusion -- we need to provide readers context. --ScienceApologist 12:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • So we need to expand the section on Force free filaments, or is it adequate?
  • Regarding critical ionization velocity (which Alfvén called critical velocity), Alfvén wrote "The sun is supposed to be formed from a dusty interstellar cloud by processes discussed above. It has a certain mass, spin, and magnetization. Residuals from the cloud form cloudlets which fall in towards the sun and, according to the plasma cosmogony, they are emplaced in those regions where they reach the critical velocity. Angular momentum is transferred from the sun. These processes are governed by plasma effects, of course in combination with mechanical effects."
Alright, but what does this have to do with cosmology? --ScienceApologist 23:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Lerner wrote: "Abstract: An explanation for the observed scale invariants in the universe is presented. Force-free magnetic vortex filaments are proposed to play a crucial role in the formation of superclusters, clusters, galaxies, and stars by initiating gravitational compression. The critical velocities involved in vortex formation are shown to explain the observed constant orbital velocities of clusters, galaxies, and stars."
I'll buy this one for Birkeland currents and Perrat's model. Thanks for the round-up. --ScienceApologist 23:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Williams wrote: "Such particle distribution models are expected to be applicable to a variety of astrophysical situations such as in the accretion column of X-ray pulsars and in magnetized plasma where the critical velocity phenomenon plays a role ."
Again, astrophysics != cosmology. So I think it is clear that until we have some justification for critical ionization velocity, this has to be left out. Any objections? --ScienceApologist 23:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I guess we should add a paragraph on the Critical ionization velocity? --Iantresman 14:39, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
At least let us know where it applies to cosmology.

Change 3

Delete: "(including the largest walls and voids)"

Justification: The cited references show that the largest voids are 100 Mpc. Even by Joshua's own account, the largest voids in the simulations are 35 Mpc (and I see no mention of that number in his references.) 35Mpc is, by a factor of 3, less than 100 Mpc, so the statement is not verifiable (nor true) and needs to go. Who agrees with this change? Who disagrees?

Hold on a second! We need to take Joke's salient criticism into account. The problem is comparing simulations to reality is never easy. I propose an alternative: remove mention of problems generating the largest voids altogether as there isn't consensus in the community how to pair observations with simulations. For this reason, 35 Mpc is not a reasonable comparison because 100 Mpc voids may correspond to 35 Mpc voids in the simulation, it isn't clear how to match the two of them. All that's clear is that the simulations and observations have voids of roughly the same order of magnitdue. --ScienceApologist 12:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Check out the Virgo Consortium simulations, assuming dark matter, dark energy and inflation to get it to work, here.
A region of lower density can be looked at as being surrounded by other regions of higher density. These regions of higher density suck the matter out of the void, making it even emptier. --Art Carlson 09:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I know enough about this particular point to vote - abstain for now Jon 08:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I favor a compromise wording that makes the degree of agreement or disagreement evident. Something like, The largest observed void is 100 MPc in diameter, while the largest void found using standard theory in simulations is 35 MPc. Lerner views this as a serious discrepancy, while many astronomers see it as reasonable agreement. --Art Carlson 09:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Until recently, simulations have been of relatively small chunks of the universe in which you wouldn't expect to see the biggest voids -- this is where Art's "reasonable agreement" comes from (the profile of void sizes inside the sim is what you'd expect for a randomly selected chunk of the universe of the same size as the simulation), and if we do go for the compromise it'd be good to explain this. Unfortunately I can't find a good reference right now for voids in recent large scale sims. By inspection of the big picture of Virgo's Millennium Simulation, there are almost certainly 100 Mpc voids in there, but next time I'm near some journals I'll track a reference down so we can update the article's cites. (Note that that picture's an unfolding of a 500 Mpc to a side simulation box into a 15 Mpc thick slice.) --Bth 10:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Compromise: "Recent cosmological simulations of the ΛCDM model produce walls and voids up to 35Mpc" (if indeed that figure is verifiable) --Iantresman 11:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Here is my comment from above
    As for "including the largest walls and voids" it is a complicated technical issue. Certainly simulations of linear structure seem to work up to those scales, as is seen in the power spectrum. The issue of voids involves the hairy gastrophysics of bias and halo occupation as well as statistical issues involved in defining and identifying voids. This whole argument seems a little specious to me, given that the plasma universe doesn't agree with the SDSS power spectrum, but the standard big bang cosmology does.
    In particular, I think arXiv:astro-ph/0312533 explains this rather well:
    Comparison of measured for the 2dFGRS with the distribution of simulated dark-matter halos of similar number density indicates that voids in the matter distribution in CDM simulations are not empty enough. However, semi-analytic models of galaxy formation that include feedback effects yield VPF’s that show excellent agreement with the data.
    This is the void problem as I understand it. I'm not convinced there is any problem with 100 h Mpc voids. In the introduction, the paper says:
    The giant void in Boötes was discovered more than twenty years ago and the existence of voids was confirmed by subsequent larger surveys at a variety of wavelengths. The size of the largest voids (D ~ 30–50 h
    So as of 2003 it was certainly not clear that there are 100 h Mpc voids. Their redshift limit is z = 0.138 which corresponds to 398 h Mpc. Whether this is sufficient depth to identify 100 h Mpc voids in a fractal distribution is not clear to me. However, the largest voids they identify are 25 h Mpc (see figure 3). I haven't been able to find anything for SDSS yet. The Einasto paper (E. Saar et al., Astron. and Astrophys. 393 1–23 (2002)) or its predecessors never actually go to the trouble of identifying a void, so far as I can tell. They identify a peak in the correlation function of clusters at the scale 128 h Mpc. There are three points to make about this.
    • identifying a peak in the correlation function at that scale doesn't indicate that voids of that size actually exist. It is not the same as running voidfinder on some data. I think the authors of these papers would agree with that: an underdense region is not a void.
    • the "statistical significance of the oscillations is not high" (Saar, 2002).
    • the existence of a peak flat out contradicts the fractal universe (as does the SDSS peak, which is statistically significant).
    So probably these statements need drastic improvement. I don't think any of this will be clear until someone takes a thorough look at voids in SDSS, but for right now, it seems to indicate to me that the only voids whose existence is on rigorous footing are those smaller than 50 h Mpc –Joke 15:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment in case it is not obvious, let me say that I am strongly opposed to voting on this particular topic until we get some agreement on the underlying issues. –Joke 15:28, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's start with those three. Please vote now.Elerner 05:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Plasma cosmology's basic assumptions

OK, I feel a bit like I'm sticking my head in the lion's mouth here, but please hear me out:

The overview gives three assumptions as lying at the core of plasma cosmology. The first I'm sceptical of because it ignores the fact that on the largest scales the charges even out, but then I can see that the claim that they don't is what makes plasma cosmology different.

Plasmas are indeed overall electrically neutral, nobody is seriously disputing that. But ignoring EMF and Hall MHD effects on very large scales and assuming matter behaves like a neutral gas, the way most astrophysics does, is like assuming that the human race is overall genderless and trying to explain human behaviour without it. Treating matter at large scales as a plasma rather than a gas produces completely different outcomes. Galactic rotation curves are different, galaxy clustering characteristics are different and evolve at different speeds, and so on. There are very powerful positive feedback loops that occur in contracting plasmas that behave very differently to the much weaker gravitational feedback that occurs in a contracting "cloud of gas and dust". What nobody seems to have done (or perhaps they have but I can't find it anywhere) is how matter behaves when both HMHD and gravitation are considered together. I think Peratt's work hints at it, but nobody has the supercomputer time to spare, it would seem.
For instance, Peratt shows that treating a galaxy as two interacting plasma filaments (rather than as an overall neutral cloud of matter acting solely under gravity) produces a galaxy rotation curve that matches observation without the need for a dark matter halo or a SMBH. Jon 23:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The second and third, however, don't strike me as all that scientific at all. I don't really see how they help to make testable predictions (OK, the third makes the "prediction" that "the universe is evolving", but that's not exactly very specific). They're more like the sort of argument-from-incredulity stuff that I'm more used to seeing from Creationists as reasons why the theory of evolution is fundamentally flawed and unbelievable.

As far as I can see, the "EM and gravitation are equally important on the largest scales" assumption is enough to get the important predictions of plasma cosmology in its broadest terms. The others just make the theory look cranky to be honest, particularly number two which just looks like a huge bit of begging the question: "we assume the Big Bang isn't true, therefore we have proved the Big Bang isn't true". For all that I'm deeply sceptical of PC, I do believe that (unlike Creationism) it's ultimately an honest intellectual enterprise, but this is exactly the sort of nonsense that Creationists indulge in.

Are the latter two assumptions just badly stated? Or are they not in fact fundamental principles of plasma cosmology as a theory, but rather philosophical reasons why its supporters are attracted to it and dissatisfied by the Big Bang? Surely, if plasma cosmology is a science, it should stand or fall on whether it's the best available explanation of the evidence, not whether it's philosophically pleasing?

Oh, and in the caption of the snapshots from the Perratt galaxy formation sim, shouldn't "kps" be "kpc"? --Bth 13:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Concerning "we assume the Big Bang isn't true, therefore we have proved the Big Bang isn't true". how come the big bang theory can assume Doppler redshift to be true, and therefore the big bang is true?


Tommysun 16:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Big Bang doesn't assume Doppler redshift to be true, it provides an explanation for the observed redshift as a result of its assumptions, which nowhere include the redshift itself. You're confusing the history of the discovery with the logical chain of the theoretical argument. --Bth 17:27, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I think Eric can answer this better than I can, but I'll give it a go. Plasma cosmologists don't assume the Big Bang isn't true, more of a case that plasma cosmology does not in itself provide any evidence of a Big Bang, rather, plasma cosmology merely indicates an "evolving universe" (ie. one in constant flux). Secondly, plasma cosmologists tend to to put empirical evidence over theory, and asks what we both known and can demonstrate in the laboratory, and how that may be applied to what is observed in space. So whereas some astronomers require black holes, neutron stars, dark matter and dark energy to explain certain phenomenon gravitationally, plasma cosmologists try to explain the same phenomenon without them, by including electromagnetic forces, and find that they can describe similar them to their satisfaction. --Iantresman 15:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

"Evolution" is a biological term. And that theory is questionable itself when "selection" is regarded as an evolutionary principle because, listen to this, "Selection is AFTER THE FACT." Tommysun 16:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Evolution is not solely a biological term (if it is, its inclusion here implies the universe is alive). As for your scepticism about the biological ToE, frankly it doesn't help your credibility. --Bth 17:27, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Why, because selection is in fact "after the fact"? Need I explain this? Selection does not occur until AFTER the evolutionary integration occurs. So, what is the evolutionary integration? Random chance? Mutation? And that's it? Hardly, symbiosis, synergy, wholistic systems is more like it.--Tommysun 06:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Sure "evolution" can be used in a biological sense, which would be completely inappropriate here as there is no "selection". I use it in the loosest terms, meaning a change, or development. --Iantresman 17:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I think the use of "evolution" in that sense is entirely appropriate -- even mainstream astronomers talk about "galactic evolution", for example. I was disagreeing with Tommysun's claim that it's a purely biological term by pointing out it was being used in another sense within the article. --Bth 18:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Second assumption

Sorry, I still don't understand why the second assumption is in and of itself an important underpinning of plasma cosmology. Surely plasma cosmology merely provides an explanation (for those who find it satisfactory) that doesn't require the Big Bang? Thing is, I don't see why you couldn't have a version of plasma cosmology that did give a finite age for the universe. --Bth 15:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Tom Van Flandern views cosmology as "eternal" like Schroedinger with his view of NOW, "having no beginning and no end," How? Someone, lost the reference, said that GR requires a singularity, but, the person wrote, GR does not stipulate how large the singularity has to be nor does it limit the number of singularities, In fact one of the 21 versions of Inflation theory has mini-singularities all over the place. Does this mean that GR would be satisfied if a singularity occured during the development of each galaxy? Maybe? So, where does the matter come from? Plasma. Seems that some physicists believe that there is a hidden dimension of space, a fifth dimension, what rienmann and Maxwell called the fourth dimension. I call it the INSIDE of empty space. How does maxwell do that? I wish I knew, but so far I have been led to the displacement currents. What are they? Maxwell's equations are not the original equations he formulated, instead they are simplifications created by Heaviside. What he simplified out was the quaternions, which, I think, explained how EMF persists in space. So, plasma is connected to a dimension inside space, which always existed, and which is the source of the energy within a galaxy/star.Therefore matter is streaming OUTWARD from any galaxy, exactly as observed. No need for fantastic creations from nothing ending in nothing.
Tommysun 09:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
(I hope you don't mind me fixing your formatting, it was getting rather hard to read jumping all over the page.) Tom Van Flandern (and you) are perfectly entitled to view cosmology as eternal. I just don't see that it's a necessary precondition for plasma cosmology. Putting it up front like that is putting the cart before the horse, and makes plasma cosmology look like a mish-mash of anti-Big-Bang positions, rather than a theory in its own right. I'm trying to write for the enemy here, dammit! The sensible way to present it would be "plasma cosmology posits X, Y and Z and thus does not require the universe to have a finite age to accord with the observations". (If indeed it does accord with the observations.) Oh, and GR in and of itself doesn't require a singularity; it's perfectly possible to construct toy GR models with all manner of properties. --Bth 10:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I suppose the second assumption is not as important as the first, but I guess it's included to differentiate itself from Big Bang cosmology. You could have a version of plasma cosmology which has a finite age, if you are prepared to accept certain phenomenon in plasma cosmology, and certain phenomenon from Big Bang cosmology. No-one has ownership of plasma cosmology, nor Big Bang cosmology--Iantresman 17:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I think it doesn't help to list it as a basic assumption, at least not so strongly stated -- to my way of thinking, it sets plasma cosmology up solely as "not the Big Bang", rather than a theory in its own right. Maybe a statement like "It is possible for the universe to be infinite in age and variable in time" would be a less strident version of the last two assumptions that still gets across the differences. --Bth 18:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
And yes, it should be kpc. My mistake. --Iantresman 15:03, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I only raised it 'cos I couldn't just fix it with the page in protection. --Bth 15:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

AND Plasma is not a theory, it is an observational fact, and if big bang does not include it, then that alone is proof that big bang is incomplete and if it is incomplete then it isn't completely true. Think about this guys, big bang is a point of view itself, a point f view from the perspective of gravity. Plasma is not in theoretical competition with gravity, it is a complementary. Just the fact that big bang does not incorporate Plasma is proof that the big bang theory is not complete and thus not correct. Plasma will never get rid of gravity, except maybe to explain gravity in terms of EMF - considering that all matter is like balls of electrons which attract eachother. The existence of plasma is itself proof that the big bang is not valid.

Tommysun 16:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Would you please pay attention? NO BIG BANG PROPONENT DENIES THE EXISTENCE OR IMPORTANCE OF PLASMA. The stars, the interstellar medium, the intergalactic medium, the primordial plasma, everything is plasma except for a few rocks and the universe between recombination and reionization in the big bang model. EVERYBODY agrees about that. The disagreements are about in what regimes, if any, gravity is more important than electromagnetic forces. –Joke 17:02, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Precisely! --Bth 17:27, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Sure that sounds about right. I think Alfvén suggests that gravity become more important when particle size exceeds dust/grain size. See the section on Dynamics in Dusty plasmas. I also note that the Big Bang article mentions plasma four times. The Plasma cosmology article mentions plasma over 60 times --Iantresman 17:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Would you please pay attention? NO BIG BANG PROPONENT DENIES THE EXISTENCE OR IMPORTANCE OF PLASMA.

Then how come "plasma" is not mentioned even once in the big bang section? And what about this quote by Jon?

"What nobody seems to have done (or perhaps they have but I can't find it anywhere) is how matter behaves when both HMHD and gravitation are considered together. "

Tommysun 06:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't care what proponents say or think, what does the theory say? Citations, quotes, not hearsay, please.

Tommysun 22:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no interest in carrying on this pointless conversation with you. Suffice it to say that you haven't found the fatal flaw with the big bang. The big bang says that plasma effects are important within their domains of validity, such as in stars, angular momentum transport in galaxies, galactic nuclei, etc.... They are not important for such large scale effects which are dominated by the clustering of dark matter, such as the formation of superclusters, clusters and galaxy haloes. I will provide sources for things that need to be sourced, but I have no interest in the utter inanity. –Joke 22:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, I kind of like inanity. Plasma (physics) and Big Bang should be citations enough to prove that plasma was established science before Big Bang theory was developed. You knew that Tommysun, so why didn't you say so? Art LaPella 23:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
You know the moon landing was faked right and and nasa are covering up the face on mars and and my uncle was abducted by aliens and if you listen real hard you can still hear the banjos Jon 23:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't know about the man on the moon, interesting that the rock formation on Mars looking like a face is resting on a perfectly formed symmetrical plateau, gosh, your uncle was what? Banjo's?Tommysun 07:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"I have no interest in carrying on this pointless conversation with you. Suffice it to say that you haven't found the fatal flaw with the big bang."

- - So, you are a big bang supporter too? No wonder you find my stuff pointless, if you didn't you would have to find a new job. Things must be getting tough when one has to resort to ad hominum attacts, subtle or otherwise. Why aren't you with the big bangers? Why are you here? Why don't you go home? Your "widely accepted hypothesis" is based on assumptions. And slowly but surely is being hacked to pieces. See http://www.cosmology.info/newsletter/2006.03.htm - Doppler redshift is assumed. (which Hubble himself did not agree with) - Expansion is based on that assumption, and without direct evidence, is also an assumption. Backward extrapolation of expansion therefore is also an assumption. Leading to the hypothesis that all of the Universe started out at a point. Where did that point come from? A time when there was no time, a place where there was no place, and an event when probability was zero. Recall that the original big bang did not work out. In order to make this work, the point had to expand to the size of the Universe, and bigger, and without evidence is also an assumption. And then it stopped, how do you explain that? Gravity? If gravity stopped the expansion, how did the expansion accelerate this supposed gravitational mass to speeds vastly greater than the speed of light to begin with? Oh, the laws of physics didn't kick in yet, I suppose...And then how did it stop? Haven't heard the real answer to that one yet. As far as "evolution" is concerned, I don't believe in accidental "after the fact" conjectures, I am a synergy fan myself. You know, positive and negative in a relationship acts as a new whole...To listen to SOME of youse guys, I hear something like the Universe simply went "poof" and the rest just happened to happen. Tommysun 04:06, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Notice that I am happily spending my evening having quite a detailed discussion with Eric Lerner, including extensive sourcing. Perhaps it is you who is the obstruction to communication. –Joke 04:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Tommysun, if you could stop raving incoherently about all the evil and injustice in the world, that would be really great. Whether the Big Bang is in imminent danger of collapse or not in your view is not only entirely irrelevant, but also inflammatory and hindering the constructive dialogue that has been so long in coming. The last few days have been very promising here, please don't stuff it up with hysterical accusative hand-waving. Jon 05:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You forget that I wrote the memo to VoA which prompted him to suggest our present procedure. And it was my suggestion to outline the discussion as heads as we (some) are doing. Maybe I should shout out "your big bang model, starting with a poof is ending with a poof"As far as hand waving see http://www.cosmology.info/newsletter/2006.03.htm.Tommysun 07:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"Why are you here" etc. has been answered several times. You do have a habit of acting deaf. Art LaPella 05:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you mean the bit about how plasma adherants tried in Nov to edit big bang, and now that means big bang can edit plasma? Yeah, I heard that. Tommysun 07:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can edit anything, that's the whole point of Misplaced Pages. We're here to try and make this article an honest, neutral portrayal of plasma cosmology, including the fact that it is not a mainstream theory and the majority of astronomers consider it to have major problems (if they consider it at all.) If you want everyone to write their own little page about their position and have it unassailable, then head on over to Wikinfo and it's world of "sympathetic point of view". Their plasma cosmology article is just a direct fork of WP's at the moment, just think of all the improvements you could make! --Bth 10:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Back to voting on changes

Well I see we are unprotected by Jossi again and that Joshua is going along with the crowd. So let's move right along and see what everyone thinks about the rest of Joshua's disputed changes.

Change 4

Reinstate Lieu's direct quote:

Lieu concluded that, taken at face value, the data indicated that there was "no strong evidence for an emission origin of the CMB at locations beyond the average redshift of our cluster sample (i.e. z ~ 0.1)." This is as predicted by the plasma model, but in sharp contradiction to the big bang model, which assumes that all the CMB originates at extreme distances.

Justification: This is a direct quote from the article in question. Joshua's quotes are from an EARLIER interveiw relating to an entirely different paper by Lieu. Lieu's comments in that interveiw are not about his own beliefs, it is about what he feels are the implications of the work he was interveiwed about, which was entirely different than the work we are concerned with here. There is just no justification for dragging that other work in by the tail and excluding Lieu's own views about the signifigance of THIS work.

Who agrees with this change? Who disagrees? Elerner 00:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC) agree Tommysun 07:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

In Lieu's conclusion to his paper Detailed WMAP/X-ray comparison of 31 randomly selected nearby clusters of galaxies - incomplete SZ Effect, he states:
"Unless there remains performance issues to do with WMAP which have hitherto been overlooked, the question concerning whether the CMB is truly the definitive piece of evidence that proves the correctness of the Big Bang model is hereby raised in a serious way by this research team for the first time. If WMAP has hidden problems that prevents it from properly charting degree scale structures, one must then ask to what extent can the acoustic peak information be trusted."
Lieu is questioning a fundamental assumption of the Big Bang, that CMB is of cosmological origin. Jon 12:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I would like the current quote to be removed, but I think the other quote is fine in the footnote and we can just paraphrase. Lieu's paper has not been published yet, incidentally, and I think just about every cosmologist or astrophysicist would interpret Jon's quote as a bit of dramatic self-aggrandizement. –Joke 02:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Why paraphrase on a controversial issue, when we have a short quote?Elerner 02:49, 15 March 2006 (UTC) Agree Tommysun 07:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess it is not that big a deal, but we don't have quotes elsewhere in the article. I still don't see how this quote can be said to be "predicted by the plasma model" when the detailed angular structure of the CMB is not known in plasma cosmology. –Joke 04:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This is as predicted by the plasma model, but in sharp contradiction to the big bang model, which assumes that all the CMB originates at extreme distances. --> this prose is unacceptable unless a source for this can be cited. --ScienceApologist 15:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Change 5

Reinstate "Some astronomers believe that the alignments ..." in the paragrpah about the WMAP alingments.

Justification: I was able to find only TWO papers in arXiv claiming that these results were due to foreground in the two years since this was first reported. Maybe there are more. But in just the last month, there were two papers completely ruling out foreground contamination. So saying that "some astronmers " think this when it cleary is not a majority veiw, seems fair.

Who agrees with this change? Who disagrees? Elerner 00:33, 15 March 2006 (UTC) AgreeTommysun 07:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Citations, please. As best as I can tell, the Slosar and Seljak paper doesn't even have two citations in the last months. Nowhere does it say that most or even all astronomers think that. I think that SA's version is a simple, NPOV statement of the facts. Here it is again:
    Since the low-l multipoles are the ones with the most systematic errors, it has been pointed out that there are likely to be due to uncertainties in the removal of the foreground from the CMB. (See Cosmic microwave background radiation#Low multipoles.)
    –Joke 02:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I am just saying WHO pointed this out--it was not God, it was some--actually a few--astronomers. Here are four very recent citations, just astro-ph numbers and four from last year: 0603369, 0601427, 0603308, 0603367, 0502237, 0508047, 0503442, 0511802.Elerner 02:49, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, here is my take. The papers 0511802 and 0601427 are about non-Gaussianity, not about the quadrupole and octopole, which is a different, though related, discussion. The problem with the other papers (0503442, 0603367, and 0502237, 0603308) is that rather than marginalizing over foregrounds, they use so-called foreground cleaned maps, such as the WMAP Internal Linear Combination map, the Tegmark foreground cleaned map, or the wavelet cleaned map of 0603308. Nobody disputes that the effect is in these maps. The question is whether the errors induced in the foreground subtracted map are properly accounted for. The four papers I consider authoritative are Slosar and Seljak (0404567), Bielewicz et al. (0507186), Copi et al. (0508047), and Tegmark and de Oliveira-Costa (0603369, which is spanking new!). They obtain similar results and come to very different conclusions. From Slosar and Seljak,

We also discuss recent claims that the quadrupole and octopole are aligned. If one believes the ILC map, then the evidence for the quadrupole and octopole alignment is considerable. All three methods tested here indicate that the two are suspiciously aligned. However, as soon as foreground uncertainties are included the evidence for this alignment disappears. It is not unexpected that the probability distributions broaden, but what is surprising is how rapidly the evidence vanishes and how strongly perfect or even partial alignment is excluded by the data. This strongly suggests that much of the evidence of the alignment comes from the portion of the data most contaminated by the galactic foregrounds.

from Bielewicz,

the well-known quadrupole-octopole correlation is confirmed at the 99% significance level, and shown to be robust with respect to frequency and sky cut. Previous claims are thus supported by our analysis. Finally, the low-ℓ alignment with respect to the ecliptic claimed by Schwarz et al. (2004) is nominally confirmed in this analysis, but also shown to be very dependent on severe a-posteriori choices. Indeed, we show that given the peculiar quadrupole-octopole arrangement, finding such a strong alignment with the ecliptic is not unusual.

from Copi,

This figure clearly shows that sky cuts of a few degrees or larger introduce significant uncertainty in the extracted multipole vectors and their normals, leading to increased error in all alignment tests. Nevertheless, the cut-sky alignments are consistent with their full sky values even for relatively large cuts. While the results of this exercise are in good agreement with those found by Slosar & Seljak (2004) and Bielewicz et al. (2005), unlike these authors, we emphasize that the cut sky is always expected to lead to shift in the alignment values and to increased errors.

from Tegmark,

Confirming the conclusion of , the octopole is seen to be quite robost, whereas the quadrupole moves around somewhat more (it is clearly more fragile due to its intrinsically lower amplitude). As seen in Figure 6, this causes the apparent measured alignment be somewhat less significant than the true one, but make no dramatic difference. Similarly, we find that replacing Mask 0 by Mask 6 (the joint quadrupole/octopole fit in Table 1) degrades the alignment significance only slightly, from a one-in-sixty fluke to a one-in-forty fluke.

Obviously, although these papers come to mutually consistent conclusions, they interpret the same observations in very different ways. They all confirm that the quadrupole and octopole are aligned with a significance of 1–2% in the so-called "cleaned" maps, with a somewhat less significant alignment with the ecliptic, and that the signficance is reduced when a more detailed analysis with a careful treatment of foregrounds is performed. Their interpretation of this result differs. Slosar and Seljak indicate that it eliminates evidence for alignment; Bielewicz thinks that the quadrupole-octopole alignment is confirmed, but not the ecliptic alignment; Copi thinks that the alignment with the ecliptic is very robust, despite agreeing his results are consistent with Slosar and Bielewicz; Tegmark suggest that the quadrupole-octopole alignment is robust and does not consider the ecliptic. Maybe we'll learn more about it Thursday at noon, but I doubt it. –Joke 04:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

How about we add these four papers to the footnote, and change "pointed out that they are likely due to uncertainties" to "pointed out that they may be due to uncertainties" (yes, all this for two words)? –Joke 04:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Change 6

Reinstate:

Its development has been hampered, as have that of other alternatives to big bang cosmology, by the exclusive allocation of government funding to conventional cosmology. Most conventional cosmologists argue that this bias is due to the large amount of detailed observational evidence that validates the simple, six parameter ΛCDM model of the big bang. However, many scientists, including those from leading astronomical institutions, have urged that this bias be ended and alternative cosmologies be funded.

Justification: It is plain wrong to describe the signers of the Open Letter as supporters of alternative cosmology. Some of them are, but most are not. Two hundred and fifty of them--"many"--are scientists or engineers associated with instituions, all but a handful of them being universites, or government or corporate research insitutions. Of those, at least 40 are, to my own knowledge, astronomers or astrophysicists, including those from many leading institutions. Many of the other singers are physicists of various sorts, and well able to identify scientific bias when they see it. Joshua may want to wish this away, but it is there for anyone to see at cosmologystatement.org. To desribe these scientists as "these people" or to dismiss them as all adovactes of alterantive cosmologies is simply untrue.

Who agrees with this change? Who disagrees?Elerner 00:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC) Agree with EricTommysun 07:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

How about
However, many scientists, some from leading astronomical institutions, have urged that this bias be ended and alternative cosmologies be funded."

Jon 01:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I prefer Jon's version, but I think it may be possible to find an even better version. I don't like the words many and bias. Many, compared to what? And bias is intrinsically POV. –Joke 02:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

How about the more quantitative: "However, hundreds of scientists, including dozens from leading astronomical institutions, have urged that this bias be ended and alternative cosmologies be funded."Elerner 02:49, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Fine. By the way, can you have a look at the void comments above. –Joke 04:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Not fine. That sentence assumes that the "bias" exists when it isn't clear that it does. This is making a mountain out of a molehill and is striking as POV-pushing.

Why not simply quote the article and be done with it? That would be an honest way to deal with it. It reads: "Allocating funding to investigations into the big bang's validity, and its alternatives, would allow the scientific process to determine our most accurate model of the history of the universe." Tommysun 06:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Tommysun 06:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Its development has been hampered, as have that of other alternatives to big bang cosmology, by the exclusive allocation of government funding to conventional cosmology. --> this statement is obviously not NPOV. There is no independent corroboration that such a statement is correct. It could be that all the alternative cosmology developers are all incapable of producing good work. (I'm not saying that they are, only that it's not NPOV to claim that the hampering is due to exclusive allocation of funding.) --ScienceApologist 15:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

However, many scientists, including those from leading astronomical institutions, have urged that this bias be ended and alternative cosmologies be funded. --> cosmologies aren't "funded", grants are given to scientists and research groups. This kind of wording is exceedingly problematic. --ScienceApologist 15:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know enough about these areas of the subject to answer. --Iantresman 10:29, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

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