• NOT this week - I chair a local AGM tonight, visit my sister's art show in High River Saturday, and semi-annual beer with a cousin on Sunday (I don't usually travel that much).
• NOT Wed 24Jan2024 - I'm supposed to be in Calgary for an event that night (not sure if that will work)
• NOT Sat 27Jan2024 - I'm attending a local Hussar event, not sure if I'm bar-tending (which I usually do)

New ideas in Astronomy

1. Black holes recycle matter and make light elements abundant in the universe
   • General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM) are of course part of my "multiple Conflicting Hypothesis". But I'm definitely not their [disciple, priest], and possibly FAR better ideas are out there. Ideas that are [simple, intuitive], and actually fit data that is always ignored.
   • As for Black Holes, just like the [Higgs boson, neutron, neurino (I visited the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory)], we'll see how that actually works out in the end (long after we're dead).
   • Black Holes, IFF they exist at all, may recycle matter (a bit like Stephen Hawking's ideas)? Nobody can [do the math, experiment, etc], or at least I sometimes call BS on on the [math, science]. Electrical processes definity do, and you can show that in your garage, if you buy the instruments etc (eg Billy Yelverton has done this, plus fascinating geology. Many others have done impressive experiments in their garage, or field observations like Andrew Hall's electric geology.). (By the way: Is gravity simply a 4th order electrostatic attraction between neutral vibrating dipoles?)
   • Fun concept from decades ago: Marklund convection along Birkeland currents may be the way that elements were distributed among the planets in our Solar system. Perhaps that applies to the formation of [solar system, galaxy, galactic cluster, etc]s? At least electrical experiments show this, and are scalable over many orders of magnitude!
2. The evolution of spiral galaxies takes hundreds of billions of years
   • I don't remember the estimates for different [historical period, concept]s.
   • Be careful - spiral galaxys may actually rotate as expected according to [Electric, Plasma] Universe theories? Formation could be much faster than the "gravity-myopia theories" out there.
   • My stupid trick based on a comment in a paper that included [Veizer, Shaviv] that stars can drift in and out of the spirals in a galaxy?
     reference (maybe): this might not be the right paper?
     video no longer works!!!: Dark matter video 1 - initial, simple.mpeg
     simple photo: the idea is that the birkland currents move differentially from the actual stars, lighting up different stars as they pass (from [dark, glow] modes to spark-mode plasma).
     
3. Could Hubble's Law be based on extragalactic orbital motion?
   • I don't know. I thought that extragalactic orbital motion was part of the Hubble's Lawconcept. Lot's of dark [matter, energy] stuff gets mixed in?
   • I have forgotten a number of concepts related to cosmology, but overall I think the speculation so integral to the subject that it's not something that I have confidence in. But it is fun.
4. Revisiting Olbers' paradox with a modern lens
   • I didn't know what "Olbers' paradox" is :
     Wikipedia "... Olbers's paradox, also known as the dark night paradox, is an argument in astrophysics and physical cosmology that says that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe ..."
   • Hmm, I can't comment on "Olbers' paradox".
   • It does remind me of massive "chase-your-own-tail" centered on the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation" (CMBR) (I hope that I have that right.) It looked to me that CMBR corresponded with mass concentrations in what we can see. One-of-jillions of theories is that CMBR is the expected frequency of energy decay from orbiting electrons or something related to basic physics?
5. Life in our solar system didn't start from scratch
   • My pure guess is that this has been a theme from long before Carl Sagan or Jules Verne. I think ancient mythology has always had it too, in its own way.
   • They must have a lot of data about surviving microbes from space missions, but the contamination problem might make that problematic. One thing that surprised me was the longevity of some materials that I thought would easily [vaporize, sublimate].
6. Asteroid belts are common in the universe
   • This sees very sensible to me. Sometimes the "fluctuating light periodicities", used to detect the presence of planets in other solar systems, seems stretched to fit what scientists want to see, like red shift?
   • But it could be an extremely interesting question if you have ideas that are different from the normal beliefs. A bit like Bodes Law, rotational frequencies, what is gravity, etc.
7. Large bollide impacts trigger antipodal volcanism
   • I didn't know what "antipodal volcanism" is :
     from Abstract : "... All hotspot pairs include at least one oceanic hotspot, and these are consistently opposite those hotspots related to large igneous provinces (LIPs) and continental volcanism. ..."
   • cool - the far-side-of-the-Earth reflection focal point, often assuming a bollide impact?
   • But you obviously have some ideas to take that idea further.
8. The North Pole's path at the end of the Pleistocene
   • Nice topic. I don't remember any papers on either the [rotational, magnetic] North pole drifts, but there must be some. I did take note (and differ with) the opinion on [Earth, Sun] drives of geomagnetics [<, >] 5years. It pretty well all looks solar to me, as a first approximation.
   • Most of what I've seen recently is from Ben Davidson of SuspiciousObservers.org for just the last 150 years. He was the best large-earthquake forecaster in the world for a couple of years recently, until major groups, some after stabbing him in the back, started to adopt some of his stuff (not bad for a lawer). Ben's really hyped up about geomagnetic weaking and magPole drits over the 10-20 years.
   • Davidson also goes in to reasons why the [mantle, crust] bounday loosens, and how that would allow the crust to rotate independent of the whole Earth's axis of rotation. (also he taks about the big mantle blobs, and Einstein's work).
   • A perennial fun thought to me concerns the origins of the Earth's magnetism. Conventional theory seems to fall flat on its face : rotating conductors do NOT induce current by themselves - they need to cut (or encounter) electric fields, or changing magnetic fields. Furthermore, the outer core may not be circulating (iron) liquid at all. An emeritus Cambridge scientists pointed out that "Extreme Posson Ratio" (EPR) iron compounds should be expected under those conditions, and they would be solids. The shear waves (S-waves) are lost within EPR materials, so a primary basis for the standard theory of geomagnetism may not even be real?
   • In a bigger picture, perhaps the Sun doesn't generate all it's own [electric, magnetic]*[field, activity]. Instead, it draws from far larger galactic currents. That is what the SAFIRE project was testing - and the results were impressive and [visible, measurable]. This contrasts with the standard nuclear model of the Sun, which shows almost nothing except a better energy balance, based on more assumptions than reality.
   • Now perhaps much more serious is speculation that an oncoming Milky Way galatic current sheet wave is approaching with surfing dust. Davidson's argument, as I understand it, is that we don't see this associated with the solar system current sheet because of the solar wind, etc.
9. Are sunspot cycles based on planetary alignments?
   • This may have been one of the very early conjectures in the 1800's when the sunspot cycle was spotted. (I think perhaps sunspots stooped showing before Galileo could track a cycle).
     A really fun paper :
     Paul Charbonneau 2002 "The rise and fall of the first sunspot model" JHA xxxiii Science History Publications Ltd. - Provided by the NASA Astrophysics data system
     As Charbonneau points out, physicists keep repeating that physics proves that the other planets cannot affect sunspots. But to me, this is a proof using 2 cards out of a deck of 52. I am not convinced at all - they should use more physics.
   • Are MOST cycles linked? Strange coincidences everywhere...

I have spent considerable recent time on :

• the now-modest impacts of my mother breaking her hip in Vancouver (she is very reluctant to go out in the [ice, cold])
• packing [extra insulation, many patio stones] against the "wooden skirts" of my house to stem bad air leaks (good exercise)
• write-up of a "strange timing crash of items" related to :
  • Edo Kaal's "Structured Atom Model"
  • the SAFIRE & Aureon.ca projects
  • Sierpinsky triangle fractals - from Johannes Kepler to the nucleus, maybe across almost all [time, subject]s
  • Stephen Puetz's fantastic "Universal Wave Series" of many known cycles
  • exchanges with a CNRL scientist regarding his [Thorium, deactivation] research over the decades (this drove the write-up)
  • etc
• my RAM diesel pickup was having trouble starting: turns out it was an even-worse-than-normal excessive engine-off current draw, exacerbated perhaps by a new Engine Control Unit (ECU) that the local garage installed. The garage installed screw-type battery cut-offs in preparation for the winter, and now changed to more traditional knife-like cut-offs. Funny how much of my time this takes.