It is simplified.

Some of the concepts are actually pretty hard to put into words and just are how they are. And for each cosmologist you speak to you will encounter a different opinion of the standard cosmological model or parts of its construction.

There are parts of it i don't like because i can't follow and feel comfortable with each step. The maths makes sense, but there's nothing logical and connected in my understanding. At first i didn't like that, but then i realised that we all accept quantum mechanics where charged particles accelerate without radiating, and "instantaneously" move between distinct energy levels.......

In other words, every physical law we've got is just our primitive way of understanding the signals sent from our senses to our brain. Things seem to make sense to us the more experience we have with it happening. We don't understand why matter moves towards other matter via "gravity" - a word which we accept and go 'ahhh gravity - i understand now' but why the hell should it and/or why should it exist in the first place merely to move towards one another?!

So gravity attracts things (why?!) and time only runs in one direction (why!?) and energy is quantized according to the planck constant (WHY!?) and ... the universe is more or less like it's shown in the video! But why why why!? Well, that's a question for a philosopher.

*promote

This is most likely the most AMAZING filament eruption to be caught on video. It is caused by a little process called magnetic reconnection. It's a little process that gives us our solar flares, these filaments, CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections), auroras, and the possible potential for very dangerous radiation storms every few millennium--give or take a few. Basically, plasma flows along these field lines of magnetism. When things get out of hand, then those field lines distort and change and all of a sudden things get very dangerous (AND sometimes beautiful). The faster the magnetic field changes the faster the particles will travel making them more and more dangerous as the events unfold fast enough giving them more energy (kinetic & heat), which in turn if directed at us means it penetrates much further into our protective field and anything outside of the field, crispy--in the shredded DNA, cells, you name it sense.

Occasionally, Earth's magnetic field breaks down a bit (if I remember why correctly it was a certain "sequence" within our magnetic shield and it reacts badly with the Sun's--don't quote me though, I really need to look it back up again it was a very long time ago I remember this from), if a large solar flare directed towards Earth ever happened before Earth had enough time to fully build back it's strength we would be FAR more in trouble than usual, but this would be a rare event. Usually what happens is that the charged particles follow Earth's magnetic lines and go to the poles, which is the one place on Earth where you do suffer the most radiation from the Sun (basically wherever the poles are as the plasma follows the polarity or "field lines" of Earth's magnetic field). It's also why the closer you are to the poles the better your view is of the aurora as the particles streaming in, if there is a sufficient quantity moving very fast (the more energy, especially kinetic--speed, the farther the penetration into the atmosphere and the lower the aurora becomes visible), will enter the atmosphere and begin to be absorbed by various elements that our atmosphere is compromised of like Nitrogen.

Here's a quick explanation. Basically, the particles collide with atoms of molecules/elements or anything in the higher atmosphere, exciting their electrons into higher energy levels, which is known fundamentally in science as quantum leap/atomic transition/electron transition it's one of the atom's most fundamental abilities dealing with "extra energy" being pushed into a system that wants balance (this is a very common process that happens ALL DAY long, EVERYWHERE around you; it transfers photons essentially--pure energy--BUT, what is the energy in the form of as it's energy level makes it do very many different things; you could see things, what you consider the normal range of light--it's EXACTLY how light goes THROUGH a window--it doesn't go through the window it is transferred via the atoms from one side to the next, this is ALSO why people are trying to get invisibility to work as it just might; HEAT is another one that is transferred all the time--it literally radiates outwards from our bodies and then we are surrounded by excited electrons and the infrared range of light we are putting out, the heat of a human body...or any animal; this goes on and on, it happens everywhere and as I said ALL-THE-TIME, it's perhaps one of the most critical processes and abilities of the atom and how photons also transfer their energy between areas in a direction; a little off-topic information for those that don't realize how much is going on, everywhere, all the time, at any given second...it's a complicated, but beautiful world)), and making them give off light that we see when the charge they've taken on finally returns the molecule/element's electrons to their normal orbits in the electron shell; the color depends on what molecule/element was being bombarded and how much energy was involved from the particle that hit it). This of course transfers all the energy that those particles had and we get a nice light show.

/I thought I'd fill my promote with something useful; ...on why these happen...
//edit-For a little more clarity, grammar and a bit more information that I hope some will appreciate if it helps anyone learn something or atleast go look up some of this and learn some on their own; taking an interest in science, it's one of the most important things in the world that we have.
///Spreading science is just as important; it's the one literal thing we do/use that has ever allowed us to deal with the worst problems we have: fear, pain, death, disease, sorrow, despair, ignorance, etc... Science IS the light in the dark. It is our best hope for mankind's continued existence and a good life. It is the single most important activity we now do as a group; it's our savior from us and what's out there...

>> ^dirkdeagler7:

>> ^dannym3141:
Firstly, i'm not happy with his or the writer in the story's understanding of the words "quantum" and "dimension". Especially the former. And secondly i'm questioning that any ..."quantum effect"... occured because he made a huge assumption that the umbrella man was involved. I can think of a billion reasons why it might have happened (however unlikely).
This is an interesting story so i have no idea why he started with the quantum spiel. Heartwarming story about a conspiracy theorist who was cured

The way i read it is, if you understand some about physics you may think you know the universe and it all makes sense. However if you start to look deeper and at the minor details of the universe, aka the quantum level, things start to become much less logical and intuitive. Therefore you must dig hard to find the true nature of things at this level, and often times the truth will be more strange or surprising than you ever imagined.
When people were first discovering that there was a charged particle orbiting a nucleus do you think they assumed it was actually a cloud or probability and not a constant circling point? Of course not that would seem absurd at first, much as it would be absurd to think that the umbrella man was a guy protesting actions by JFKs father!


That's a decent explanation of what he was trying to say, but i still think he said it poorly. A quantum dimension? A very small dimension? I hope it wasn't foolish to misunderstand.

I agree that it would be absurd to assume he was protesting JFK's father but that's not the point being made is it? I thought the point being made was that it was absurd to think anything other than him being there for 'shenanigans', which i think is bullcrap. I think it's an expected result to find he's there innocently.

>> ^dannym3141:

Firstly, i'm not happy with his or the writer in the story's understanding of the words "quantum" and "dimension". Especially the former. And secondly i'm questioning that any ..."quantum effect"... occured because he made a huge assumption that the umbrella man was involved. I can think of a billion reasons why it might have happened (however unlikely).
This is an interesting story so i have no idea why he started with the quantum spiel. Heartwarming story about a conspiracy theorist who was cured


The way i read it is, if you understand some about physics you may think you know the universe and it all makes sense. However if you start to look deeper and at the minor details of the universe, aka the quantum level, things start to become much less logical and intuitive. Therefore you must dig hard to find the true nature of things at this level, and often times the truth will be more strange or surprising than you ever imagined.

When people were first discovering that there was a charged particle orbiting a nucleus do you think they assumed it was actually a cloud or probability and not a constant circling point? Of course not that would seem absurd at first, much as it would be absurd to think that the umbrella man was a guy protesting actions by JFKs father!

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an authority on the topic, I just thought I'd share my musings for any who may be interested

I'm extremely surprised that none of the physicist could give a remotely satisfactory answer to the beam-hand interaction question. I realise that the energies involved are extreme so weird things may happen and they obviously specialise in more fundamental aspects of the physics but I would have expected all of them to know at least a little bit about the physics of interactions between charged particle radiation beams with solid objects or water.

I only learnt a bit about proton beam therapy used in radiation oncology during my Masters in Medical Physics, and I'll admit I've forgotten a lot of it and can't remember all the calculations or parameters involved, but it seems to me like this would be a similar although perhaps more extreme case. Ultimately you would be receiving some dose of ionising radiation, the amount would depend on various things.

As solid as our hand appears to be it is still mostly empty space on an atomic scale, and there is a very high likelihood that protons in the beam will not collide with anything as they pass through. This is particularly true at very high energies, I forget exactly why... either due to momentum or the time spent in close enough proximity with atomic nuclei or something, but protons interact relatively weakly until they lose enough energy through the few interactions that do occur, at which point the likelihood of further interactions rises exponentially dumping all the remaining energy very rapidly. It is interesting to note here that at medically relevant energies 100-200Mev (17-35 thousand times lower than the LHC) this energy dump requires between 5 and 20cm tissue for the initial slow down to take place before the beams slow enough to dump the bulk of their energy. Your hand is at most a few centimetres thick and barely sufficient enough to do this at 100MeV let alone 3.5TeV. Graph which illustrates this.

Anyway, energy from the beam would be deposited due to some deflections and collisions and result in ionisation of some atoms either directly by collisions or indirectly by xray/gamma rays produced in the interactions. The few direct collisions between protons in the beam and atomic nuclei would also likely result in exotic particles and radiation further contributing to the dose you receive.

Other things to consider are whether the protons that shoot through your hand are still following sensible enough trajectories for the LHC to bend them around for another pass. At near light speeds they would be shooting around the LHC many thousands of times per second so even if the chances of interactions occuring in your hand are slim, each proton that manages to make another pass rather than shoot off on a random path that takes it out of the LHC, will have many opportunities to interact and deposit energy.

So depending on just how many protons are in the beam, and how much energy they dump into your hand, the effect could be anywhere from increased chance of cancer to a radiation burn of some sort if not a hole in your hand (although I suspect that most extreme scenario is unlikely).

All of this assumes my understanding isn't completely void at the energies involved which, if it is, may explain why the physicists didn't mention any of this.

>> ^longde:

I thought such events were supposed to have a deleterious effect on electronic devices on earth.


Does it depend what side of the Sun it's happening on? Maybe those charged particles are firing off in the other direction.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Chick, Corea, Elektric, Band, Charged, Particles, Mickey, Mouse' to 'Chick Corea, Elektric Band, Charged Particles, Mickey Mouse' - edited by kronosposeidon

The audio is a representation of radio frequency signals measured at Saturn. The RF signals are described as 'kilometric' - which means wavelengths around a kilometer. This means they have a frequency around 300 kHz (on the lower side of AM radio) - since the speed of light is 300,000 km/s - i.e. a 1 km wave goes by at a frequency of 300,000 times per second. To let us hear the patterns in the signal, they shifted these RF signals down by a factor of 30 or so, and converted them to sound - around 10 kHz.

These RF signals are due to the motions of charged particles (electrons and protons) trapped in the magnetic field of Saturn. As the particles cycle back and forth along the magnetic fields, they move at different speeds and spread out, with different frequencies coming at different times. Converted to sound, it becomes these eerie tones.

The giant planets have very large magnetic fields. The charged particles come from the Sun, and also interact with the moons and rings. Jupiter has an even more powerful magnetic field, and radio bursts indicate that lightning bolts jump the space between Jupiter and the inner moons.

Here is a video that shows a model of Saturn's magnetic field.
The video must be correct, since the narrator has a british accent.
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/23337-saturn-composition-and-magnetic-fields-video.htm

"Lifters" show an interesting effect- seen plenty of examples over the years, but to call it "Electro-Gravitic" might be a bit of a stretch. The most likely hypothesis of how this works is that the high voltage is generating a stream of charged particles which run over the surface of the mettalic umbrella, this charged "wind" causes lift in the direction of flow. Let's see an example of this operating in a vacuum, then give me a call.

Every atom has a tiny tiny charge associated with it.

Actually, over 99.9% of the water particles in a bucket at 20,000 volts have a neutral net charge, because charge is quantized. If every water particle had an extra electron, it couldn't even condense to form a liquid.

flux effect of charged particles (ie. an EM field)

An electrical potential gradient is a more specific term for the kind of EM field present in this problem. The magnetic component is negligible.


Once the charge is large enough, the random distribution of the charge within the system is what creates the diffusion of the water dropping through the buckets.

You mean the positively charged water molecules repel other positively charged water molecules, etc.


Its basically a van-de-graffe machine, only in a really novel way.

A Van De Graaff machine is based entirely on surface friction, while this is based on electrostatic induction.

Zero kinetic / gravitational potential energy is converted, the meer useage of gravity is a neat way to get the water droplets to pass through the rings, but none of this energy is converted into electrostatic energy.

Even the site you linked contradicts you and agrees with me on this count. The energy for the sparks comes from the gravitational potential of the water in the source, since gravity does work to pull the positively charged water away from the negatively charged bucket and towards the positively charged bucket, etc.

Close, but not quite.

Every atom has a tiny tiny charge associated with it.
This system is essentially a positive feedback capacitor, that takes advantage of the flux effect of charged particles (ie. an EM field) passing over a conductor, to slowly build up a charge in the system.

Once the charge is large enough, the random distribution of the charge within the system is what creates the diffusion of the water dropping through the buckets.

Once the charge is large enough, it overcomes the distance barrier between the two balls and redistributes the charge back into the water.

Its basically a van-de-graffe machine, only in a really novel way.

They are called Kelvin water droppers / batteries.

The sun gives off high-energy charged particles (also called ions) that travel out into space at speeds of 300 to 1200 kilometres per second. A cloud of such particles is called a plasma. The stream of plasma coming from the sun is known as the solar wind. As the solar wind interacts with the edge of the earth’s magnetic field, some of the particles are trapped by it and they follow the lines of magnetic force down into the ionosphere, the section of the earth’s atmosphere that extends from about 60 to 600 kilometres above the earth’s surface. When the particles collide with the gases in the ionosphere they start to glow, producing the spectacle that we know as the auroras, northern and southern - From virtual finland