Talk:The Electric Universe (book)
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User:Joshuaschroeder has placed this redirect (see:Talk:Electric_Universe_model), as he fells that discussion of electric universe models could never have anything more to say than what a single book called "Electric Universe" has already done. End of story, so says Joshuaschroeder. TTLightningRod
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[edit] Why you can't find information on the Electric Universe Model on Wikipedia
If you are looking for a balanced, neutral point of view article on Wikipedia on the topic of the Electric Universe Model, you won't find it. You may, if you are lucky, find this page, which is all that our censors will allow.
You can find the heated debate that led to the deletion of an article on the Model here and additional discussion here. The article was 12 days old, but was too controversial to survive longer than that.
While some Wikipedians have decided that we should tell you nothing of the Electric Universe Model (dangerous stuff), other websites on the internet have not yet been closed down by the Chinese secret police, and you can refer to http://www.thunderbolts.info/ for more detail. Sorry that we can't tell you anything about it on this otherwise magnificent encyclopedia. --Bongani 19:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Suggestion to have a note about the censorship of the Electric Universe Model topic on the article page
I suggest that we have a note on the article page (The Electric Universe (book)) mentioning the deletion of the EUM article. The note could appear on a heading at the end of the article and read something like this:
- Electric Universe Model (EUM)
- An article on this topic was deleted 13 days after its creation by a vote of 17 (Delete) to 14 (Keep) with 2 Merge votes. The general feeling expressed in the delete votes was that the EUM is Original research, POV fork, and pseudoscience. The general feeling expressed in the keep votes was that it was not original research, was not a POV fork and even if it was pseudoscience, still merited a place in Wikipedia, even if under the category of pseudoscience.
- To view the discussion around the deletion of the article, click here.
- The page where the EUM was discussed has subsequently been re-directed here.
I invite both those in favour of the articles original deletion and against it to comment on the note and help hammer out something which we can all agree on, which, even if it provides no information on the Model itself, at least shows readers looking for this topic that Wikipedia has tried to "process" the challenge of this controversial topic, and that it is not absent from the encyclopedia because it was accidentally left out. --Bongani 19:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Reverted changes by Joshuaschroeder
Joshua, I have reverted all of your changes to this page as I consider them to be vandalism. As a note of public record, I should also note that I am in the process of making a request for arbitration against Joshuaschroeder, and have also had disputes on a subject with a similar name, on the Electric Universe (concept) page. Additionally, I have not read the book described, and can not comment on its content of veracity. My reasons for the alledged vandalism are as follows:
- Removal of background information, that Körtvélyessy's "is physicist who is candidate of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences", as described on his web site [[1]] page. This takes away his credentials.
- Changing background information that Körtvélyessy is "known as a 'specialist in thermocouples'" to "he is a self-described 'specialist in thermocouples' ". The impication of "self described" suggests that he has given himself this title, when his biography page indicates that he is indeed a "physicist for high temperature measurements with thermoelements and later as a scientist of high temperature process technics in the industry". I consider this demeaning of the person.
- The text had described Körtvélyessy's "major point is that the whole Sun is a thermoelement.". His Fig. 3.1 suggest this may indeed be part of his theory, but this has been removed, effectively castrating the raison d'etre for the book. This is mis-representation.
- Worse, the text has been changed to read that his "major point is that many of the phenomena and mysteries in cosmology and astrophysics can be explained through appealing to electromagnetic effects." The phrases "mysteries in cosmology", and "appealing to", while they may be technically accurate, are phrased in such a way that the authors experience with thermoelements is now just something on "mysteries" that only "appeals" to electromagnetic forces. This is mis-representation.
- The description had more factual-sounding information (which may even have been written by Joshuaschroeder himself), but this has also been removed, thereby reducing the foundation of the author's theory. This is mis-representation.
- Text has been added that "the book includes ideas culled from a variety of sources". This is of course true of any book, but the suggestion that they have been "culled" gives the impression that they have not been "researched". Once again, this is belittling the author's efforts and is a mis-representation.
- Text added includes: "sources from those interested in plasma cosmology to Velikovsky". One has to ask why Joshuaschroeder has chosen these two, out of probably hundreds of sources? That plasma cosmology and Velikovsky are very controversial, has the implication to smear the author with the same controversy. As far as I can tell, the author does not mention plasma cosmology, nor Velikovsky on his site. This is not acceptible in an encyclopedia entry.
- Text also added include "The work is not considered authoritative by astronomers.. ". This over-generalisation suggests that at least most astronomers have read and judged the book. I would doubt that many astronomers have even heard of the book, let alone read it. This is a non-neutral point of view judgement.
- Text has been added that the book "... has been criticized as pseudoscience". Another over-generalisation, with no reference, and no source. This is a non-neutral point of view judgement.
- Text has been added: "Körtvélyessy has been known to send copies of the book to major astrophysics and astronomy departments as a way to promote his ideas." What author doesn't send copies of their books out for review!! But are we to imply that this is self-promotion. So what! The tone is perjorative.
From what I have seen on Körtvélyessy's Web site, I should also mention that I do not agree with his point of view, and have no reason to support him, except that he deserves fair play and fair representation like anyone else. --Iantresman 00:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Removed junk from the article
I removed this stuff:
- In the Sun the electrons also have a higher velocity in the hot parts than in the colder parts. The solar core also will be more and more positive and the solar surface negative. The solar wind is emitted by the surface continually and the eruptions 11 yearly from the depth. The "solar dynamo" is not necessary, it was in fact not found by the satellite SOHO.
This section from the middle of the top paragraph seems to be describing physical theory, which is not the subject of the article (the subject of the article is a book). It might be relevant but needs to be tied in to the book itself rather than presented as a statement of physical fact. The fourth sentence is false: analysis of helioseismology data from SOHO has confirmed the presence of a tachocline at the base of the solar convection zone, the strongest confirmation of a solar dynamo to date. zowie 21:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm... I tried to copyedit the paragraph but, not having a copy of The Electric Universe handy I am not able to write definitively. Does the current text correctly reflect the intent of the book? zowie 21:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- If it's just the describing of a physical theory that is suspect, then that's fine. But if Körtvélyessy's is suggesting this in his book (I don't know if he is), then it might make sense to say that he "Körtvélyessy suggests that..." or similar, with a subsequent note that physical evidence has not shown this to be true?
- Yes, of course! I was just objecting to the presentation of his theories as fact, rather than as a system of ideas in his book. -Z
- As a note of discussion (I have little knowledge of Solar processes), but looking at the statements:
- "In the Sun the electrons also have a higher velocity in the hot parts than in the colder parts." This is true by definition. Hot electrons move faster the colder electrons.
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- Yes. My objection here was that the statement wasn't related to the discussion in any obvious way. I took a stab at putting it back in, but you may do better.... -Z
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- "The solar core also will be more and more positive and the solar surface negative". If this assumes that the core is at a different temperature to the solar surface, then faster moving electrons will move into the cooler parts faster than the cooler electrons can replenish them. This would be similar to plasma charging the Moon's surface, resulting in it gaining a negative charge. I would image that this would create a plasma double layer at the boundary of the hot and cool surfaces. But who knows the temperature of the core?
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- Hmmm... This is a hard one. Is the sentence asserting that the Sun is becoming more electrically charged with time? If so that should be made clear, along with the time scale on which it is becoming charged. If K himself doesn't say, then that should be made clear as well. (My major objection to the whole EU morass is the lack of clarity of predictions and/or description of the theory -- this makes it difficult to say what it does well and what it does poorly.) Many people know the temperature of the core. It has been determined reasonably well via both stellar modeling and helioseismology. By "reasonably well", I mean that it is known within about a factor of two. Off the top of my head, it's around 10 MK, but you can find plots of the MDI results at http://soi.stanford.edu. -Z
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- "The solar wind is emitted by the surface continually..." sounds fine.
- Again, this is probably OK but not clearly related to the book. -Z
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- "... and the eruptions 11 yearly from the depth" not sure what this means.
- Me either... -Z
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- "The 'solar dynamo' is not necessary," I don't understand the reasoning from the previous statements, but would guess that Körtvélyessy's charged separated core/surface has something to do with it. But if this is what Körtvélyessy is suggesting?
- If K is making this claim in the book, then it should be called out in the review because the evidence of a dynamo has become quite strong. Recent researchers such as Dikpati have actually been running semi-empirical models of the solar cycle using numerical models of the solar dynamo, and getting predictions that agree very well with the observed sunspot counts and magnetic flux distribution. -Z
- So what I'm saying is that it may sound like junk, but it might just be legitimite speculation from his book.
--Iantresman 21:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- Gotcha. Well, I'm not opposed to seeing the text back in there -- if you're willing to do it, that would be great -- but I'd like to make sure that it's a succinct summary of the book, not a promotion for a particular fringe theory. Thanks for taking the time to follow all this stuff through! (I've interspersed comments in through the list above...) zowie 22:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
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- I won't replace the text because I don't know what the book contains. I must admit I'm not even familiar with his theory, which is apparently quite different from the Electric Universe (concept), though I'm sure there are some elements in common. --Iantresman 22:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)