Talk:Plasma cosmology - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Aarghdvaark (talk | contribs) at 11:27, 6 November 2022 (→Better delineate "plasma cosmology" and "Alfvén–Klein cosmology"). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 11:27, 6 November 2022 by Aarghdvaark (talk | contribs) (→Better delineate "plasma cosmology" and "Alfvén–Klein cosmology")(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Plasma cosmology article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11Auto-archiving period: 30 days

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Physics Low‑importance

	Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Astronomy Low‑importance

	Astronomy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Astronomy, which collaborates on articles related to Astronomy on Misplaced Pages.AstronomyWikipedia:WikiProject AstronomyTemplate:WikiProject AstronomyAstronomy
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Alternative views Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative viewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative viewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative viewsAlternative views
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary.

"Electric Universe (physics)" redirects here

"Electric Universe (physics)" is a redirect to here.

If this is correct, then this article should include a "Template:Redirect" at the top and/or a bolded E.U. mention within the lede.

But if this redirect is incorrect, then attention of some sort is needed at that redirect itself so it doesn't point here. (That might be deleting the redirect (and perhaps salting it? although that may be extreme); it might be providing a stub EU article. But this parenthetical "what to do" is relatively secondary to the primary point "something needs doing".)

Could those who know about the topics (I know nothing at all about either) suggest which way to go?

Feline Hymnic (talk) 11:03, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Per policy, there really isn't a lot of choice involved. Either find sources that directly state how "Electric Universe' relates to 'Plasma cosmology', and include an explanation based on such content in the article, or delete the redirect. Unexplained 'redirects' that merely insinuate some sort of connection aren't remotely appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:11, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. So you're suggesting RfD of the "EU (physics)" redirect? Fine with me. But I've never done one of those, and there seem to be several options (speedy; discussion; etc.). Could you, with your greater experience and understanding of the "per policy" issues, actively initiate the appropriate RfD mechanism? Thanks. Feline Hymnic (talk) 12:04, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Probably best to leave it for a few days, in case anyone can come up with a relevant source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:10, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Relevant? Sure, right from the horse's mouth: "The Electric Universe is a variant of Plasma Cosmology". But nothing on that page is even close to passing as a reliable source. Here's a single line from Forbes: "and so plasma cosmology — rebranded a few decades ago as the electric Universe..." Given how fringe all of this is, that should be sufficient to keep the redirect, no? - Parejkoj (talk) 19:35, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, if this target article, P.C., is fringe, shouldn't there be a {{Fringe theories|...}} template at the head of this article? Feline Hymnic (talk) 22:23, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree that it should. - Parejkoj (talk) 01:34, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Hoo boy. This would take a while to dig up. The short version is that this started out as the "electric universe" concept but quickly got renamed to "plasma cosmology" when scientists rightly pointed out that the universe doesn't work the way its proponents claimed. I remember seeing some of its proponents fervently arguing for it way back in the early 00s... but that's not a reliable source. It might be difficult to actually track down an RS regarding the tie between the two. — The Hand That Feeds You: 19:05, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Here's my take. As I understand it, plasma cosmology is an attempt by some actual cosmologists and physicists to come up with a working alternative to standard cosmology that pays more attention to the tenets of plasma physics, in combination with gravitation, to model large scale structure, radiation background, galactic evolution, the light elements, and so on. It is certainly a minority area, by no means complete, it is even controversial, and so on; but the likes of Birkeland, Hannes Alfvén, Perratt, Halton Arp, Lerner, the Burbidges, and so on who contributed to its development are/were published working astronomers or scientists in their own right. Mavericks, maybe. In contrast, the "electric universe" folks as far as I can tell are Velikovsky fans who are trying to use some plasma cosmology ideas to make their other loony ideas sound more respectable. Their main channel seems to be their https://www.thunderbolts.info/ website, where they pedal books and flaky YouTube "documentaries" which are essentially retreads of Worlds in Collision and Chariots of the Gods. I think it's safe to say that while PC is an exploratory diversion in otherwise ordinary physics, with few proponents and plenty of critics, it nonetheless sticks to the usual methods of scientific enquiry; while EU is more like intelligent design or flat-earth theory, cherry picking some "sciencey" sounding things to prop up weird beliefs: that Venus popped out of Jupiter one day and went whizzing by the Earth, and the Egyptians all wrote about it, or something - I don't know, I didn't read it. Why would I? It's drivel. — Jon (talk) 01:54, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Better delineate "plasma cosmology" and "Alfvén–Klein cosmology"

It seems to me that the article does not clearly describe the relationship between "plasma cosmology" and "Alfven-Klein cosmology". It introduces AKC in the AKC section without stating any relation to PC, then discusses Alfven's and Peratt's "plasma universe" in the "PC and the study of galaxies" section as another distinct model (but I don't see the difference between Alfven's and Peratt's models and AKC). At a cursory literature search, I can't find any sources describing any PC models other than AKC. So wouldn't it make more sense for the article to be titled "Alfven-Klein cosmology"? Or alternatively, there should be a note in the lede to the effect of "the most common plasma cosmology model is the Alfvén–Klein cosmology, as described by Hannes Alfvén and Oscar Klein. The term 'plasma cosmology' often refers specifically to Alfvén–Klein cosmology." Either way, I think the AKC section should be renamed "History", since all three sections seem to specifically talk about AKC. –Justin Kunimune (talk) 23:06, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Plasma cosmology was developed in Sweden by Hannes Alfven and his group. It included much more than is talked about in the article, as it was about all plasmas in astrophysics. This is what Alfven was getting at with his 'triple jump', that plasma in the laboratory behaves the same as plasma in magnetospheres, and indeed as interstellar and intergalactic plasmas. As an example, the current astrophysics of the solar wind and the Northern Lights is 100% plasma cosmology; in the 1970s the Scandinavian theory completely overthrew the old UK/American standard theory which had rejected the idea of the solar wind, see Birkeland current. Plasma cosmology at all scales was supported by Scandinavian scientists like Alfven, Birkeland and Klein. Obviously, due to Alfven's foundational work on plasmas, the work for which he was awarded the Nobel prize, any mainstream work today on any space plasma is based on his work and is essentially continuing plasma cosmology, so work on the solar atmosphere is 100% plasma cosmology.
Later, the American Anthony Peratt worked with Alfven on developing plasma cosmology theories about galaxy evolution. Plasma cosmology became problematic because historically its theories about galaxies provided an explanation for the observed Galaxy rotation curves, and thus an alternative to the idea of dark matter.
Historically plasma cosmology was a steady state theory, as the Steady-state model of Fred Hoyle and his group (note the interesting comment in the lede to the Steady-state model article that it "enjoyed some minority support" - in fact until the CMBR was discovered it was 50/50! The plasma scientist Eric Lerner wrote the book "The Big Bang Never Happened", and he still supports the steady state theory. Personally I don't, but I recognize there are a lot of problems with the current big bang model - why did inflation happen? More difficult: why did it stop? And the size of the largest structures in the universe seem to be too big. Anyway, food for thought. Aarghdvaark (talk) 11:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Categories: