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August 16, 2012 | 22
The 11-year solar cycle swoops between peaks of intense magnetic activity—apparent as sunspots, coronal loops and flares—and relative quiescence, when the sun's face is free of blemishes. New research shows that despite this tumult, the sun remains remarkably constant in its globular shape—findings that have left researchers scratching their heads.
Earth's closest star is one of the roundest objects humans have measured. If you shrank the sun down to beach ball size, the difference between its north-south and the east-west diameters would be thinner than the width of a human hair, says Jeffery Kuhn, a physicist and solar researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "Not only is it very round, but it's too round," he adds. The sun is more spherical and more invariable than theories predict.
Scientists have long tried to assess the sun's shape, in part because understanding its structure would help them predict when a flare might shoot toward Earth and disrupt communication satellites and power grids. Measuring the orb has been tricky, however, and no two observations have matched exactly, Kuhn says. Researchers accounted for the discrepancies by assuming the sun's figure varied with the solar cycle.
To measure the sun's precise shape, Kuhn and his colleagues analyzed images captured by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) carried on board NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. They shared their findings online August 16 in Science. The HMI snaps nearly 15,000 portraits of the sun daily. It measures the sun's magnetic field flux and seismic surface ripples generated by constantly churning plasma. In this August 1 image, the solar disk captured by the HMI (right) shows the sun's light intensity; the other view, obtained by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on the spacecraft, renders the sun in extreme ultraviolet.
In the last two years, the sun's activity has exploded after a long period of relative quiescence, giving Kuhn and his colleagues an opportunity to watch the evolution of the solar cycle. Previous instruments for observing the star were mostly ground-based, and thus had to peer through the blur of Earth's atmosphere. Researchers may have thus measured atmospheric changes correlated with the solar cycle and not changes in the star itself, Kuhn says.
Although the HMI images are crisper and more accurate than ground-based observations, researchers still need to account for tiny movements of the spacecraft and distortions in its lenses. To sort out the sun's movements from those of the probe, they rotate the satellite and combine multiple images to eliminate distortions. The probe takes nearly a full day to roll through its calibration and does so every six months.
—Marissa Fessenden
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anybody see a connection with this discovery about the electron? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electron-perfectly-round-to-one-part-in-million-billion-experiment-finds
"If you imagine blowing up the electron so that it is the size of the Solar System, then it is spherical to within the width of a human hair," says physicist Edward Hinds at Imperial College London, who led the team responsible for the minuscule measurement."
Obviously the Sun is not an electron, but according to Discrete Scale Relativity, the Sun is the self-similar analogue of the ionic core of a lithium atom in a very high Rydberg state (n = 168, l ~ 160).
The outer envelope of the Sun corresponds the wave function of the ionic core's outermost electron analogue, which is in an S-state and has n = 5.
The innermost of the 3 electron analogues is most probably also in an S-state with n =1 .
Ever wonder why the Sun's magnetic polarity flips twice every 22 years?
Any interest in a completely new way of understanding nature. One that makes definiitve predictions, and that actually can pass them too?
Robert L. Oldershaw
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
Well the Sun is a perfect sphere! Is it also an intelligent life form? And are the planets it's offspring?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf so, global warming might be a way of reducing this planet's overload.
Ponder this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI always pictured if our sun is a proton and our nine planets are electrons circling it, What massive object are we part of? Where relativity is in size and speed.
The smaller in size of the atom the faster it spins. Is what we call a electron the same as what earth is, than how small are the atoms that make up a electron which obviously includes humans. The human concept of believing there is an absolute size of how small or how large cannot be measured since it is infinite in both directions. Everything spins, the faster smaller atom's create the mass we can see as they bunch together. Look up to the sky and what do you see but empty space with objects swirling around objects. Is this not the same as what we think to be an atom but larger and infinitely slower? I ponder this with the realization we don't know since we cannot see everything, of course I treat religion the same way. Admit you don't know and after you die you will find out is the absolute way of knowing. To guess and create human gods or the mathematical concept of existence is just that,Human !
Looks like Rutherford's theory was correct in the solar model sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo rloldershaw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes an electron as a discrete object actually rotates around nucleus in an atom on the same pattern in which planets rotate around Sun?
Why I am raising this query since an electron is not a discrete object localized at one location at one moment of time
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi All,
My very first thought on December 21, 1976, when the idea of a discrete self-similar cosmological paradigm first came to me, was that the Sun was a proton.
Subsequent research led definitively to understanding the Sun as the positive ionic core of a lithium atom in a high Rydberg state. That is the only model that agrees in terms of mass, size, shape, and charge (the Sun is known to have a net positive charge) of the Sun, and most importantly the overall structure of the Solar System.
Rutherford's model is definitely right for Rydberg atoms (those in very high energy states) and that is why Bohr's first quantum model (based on Rutherford's analogy) worked for hydrogen (due to its simplicity), but failed for LOW energy atoms with larger masses and more complicated electronic structures.
The unbound electron is a virtually naked singularity. When the electron becomes bound in an atom it is decomposed and its mass/charge distribution (composed of self-similar Subquantum Scale particles) is the same as the Schrodinger Psi-squared wavefunction (which has been mistakenly interpreted as a probability function).
You can read all about this at http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
It is best to start with papers 0, 1 ann 2 Of the "Selected Papers" section.
Best,
RLO
Discrete Scale Relativity
Ooh crackpottery at its finest!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe electron is a point particle. It doesn't have a (known) diameter so how can it be anything but perfectly spherical?
In the left photo, and all other photos of the sun in existence, has anyone noticed how all sunspots seem to live around 19.5 deg above or below the equator?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it odd how we still ignore these observations that manifest themselves in all planetary and solar objects, just because of a weird 26yr old Martin observation / artifact that some scientists want to discount because of their intellectual arrogance.
Regardless of how it looks now, the "Face on Mars" allowed us recognize the 19.5 degree "Red Flag" that shows up in all planetary and solar objects (of which prior to, we had no scientific documented observations.
Here on earth we have 3 very prominent signatures that are active every year and still science ignores Circumscribed Tetrahedral Geometry in solar and orbital environments.
I post this here in the hope of sparking dialog.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ Ralf123
"Supersymmetry" predicted that the unbound electron would have a slightly asymmetrical halo of virtual particles surrounding the singularity. Discrete Scale Relativity anticipates no such asymmetry, and completely reinterprets the composition of the sparse halo surrounding the singularity.
"SUSY" was wrong.
These issues seem to be well beyond your knowledge base, so you might want to be more careful about launching the "crackpot" bomb lest it do more damage to you than me.
To rloldershaw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy query at blog 5 pertained to : An electron is not a discrete localized object, therefore, how it can rotate around a nucleus on the same pattern as planets around Sun in Solar system?
Secondly, You stated that an unbound electron is a naked singularity. Normally a singularity is interpreted as a part of space where density of matter becomes exceedingly high ( due to infinite curvature/zero volume of space) that it approaches infinite. This is the mathematical interpretation of singularity. On Physical paradigm a singularity does not carries any meaning since infinity is meaningless in actual practice
In view of above, when you are stating naked singularity of an unbound electron, what does it signifies in mathematical as well as on physical paradigm.
Let us first have conceptual clarity of ideas before expressing the same in technical or mathematical jargon
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello Vino...,
Clearly you do not understand the physics of atoms in high-energy Rydberg states. Their structure and kinematics are far different from low energy states.
But do not take my word for it. Below is a quoted comment from professional physicists who have spent their careers studying atoms, rather regurgitating what others tell them to believe. Their paper was published in Physical Review A in 2003.
"We predict the existence of a self-sustained one-electron wave packet moving on a circular orbit in the helium atom. The wave packet is localized in space, but does not spread in time. This is a realization within quantum theory of a classical object that has been called a "Rutherford atom," a localized planetary electron on an unquantized circular orbit under the influence of a massive charged core."
"[W]e provide the first demonstration of the existence of what has been called [14] a "Rutherford atom," i.e., the wave function for a single electron moving on an unquantized stable and nonspreading planetary orbit about a massive charged core."
I suggest your bring your knowledge of atomic physics out of the dark ages and into the third millenium.
Secondly, virtually naked singularities with sparse halos of suquantum particles from the next cosmological Scale below the Atomic Scale are real physical objects that exist in nature - e.g., the unbound electron. This may be contrary to what others have told you to believe, but you are going to have to rethink things from scratch.
Discrete Scale Relativity is not abstract epicycles and Platonic fictions like string theory, SUSY, QCD, etc., etc., etc.
Discrete Scale Relativity is a fundamentally different way to understand nature. It makes at least 12 definitive predictions. At least 3 have been verified. It is based on General Relativity, neoclassical Electromagnetism and Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Theory. It offers one physics for the entire infinite fractal cosmos.
RLO
To rloldershaw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for providing new concepts. I am not disputing the findings of scientists who have spent their lives in studying physics of atoms But honestly speaking, I can not comprehend and visualize the concepts of " localized wave packets" rotating around nucleus. If electron behaves in wavy fashion around nucleus, like a cloud neither here nor there but everywhere, what is the meaning of its localization? Localization per se implies at one place. If we may go a bit further, a question arises : what is in the cloud (wave) which assumes the character of a wave i.e which remains in the wave everywhere. One can say that it is the compressed energy or localized energy. But then similar questions shall arise for energy also.
yes, I can comprehend and agree that sub quantum particles like unbounded electrons might be forming the next cosmological scale below atomic scales. But why to term these particles as "naked singularities" when in cosmology and astronomy, singularity or naked singularity are interpreted differently.
One last thing. Cosmology is not sure if universe is finite or infinite in size. If universe is infinite, it will imply that there is no end to cosmological scales on higher end -- there may be infinite higher and higher cosmological scales. This will also lead to inference that on lowest scales also there should be no end to cosmological scales since one sided infinity can not exist. If there has to be infinity, this has to be both ended.( One sided infinity is actually not infinity) Above can lead to a situation where no sub quantum particle, however small it may be, whether electron or some elementary particles of electron ( if they really do exist), can be treated as final elementary particles So if we are unable to define the ultimate lowest end cosmological scale, what will be the meaning of discrete scale self similarity relativity for higher cosmological scales?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello again Vino...,
You say: "But honestly speaking, I can not comprehend and visualize the concepts of " localized wave packets" rotating around nucleus. If electron behaves in wavy fashion around nucleus, like a cloud neither here nor there but everywhere, what is the meaning of its localization? Localization per se implies at one place."
----------------------------------------
If you are ever going to understand the electron and atoms you are going to have to learn new ideas, like the fact that the unbound electron can be a nearly naked singularity, while the bound electron in a low energy state can have a spherical shell structure, and the bound electron in a high-energy state can behave in a planet-like manner.
That still does not cover all of the electron morphologies that are possible. This is all described by Schrodinger's wave mechanics, if you understand that Psi-squared is the charge/mass density of subquantum particles resulting from the decomposition of the bound electron.
If you do not like new ideas, feel free to stick with the old ideas which have led nowhere for 40 years.
RLO
And finally,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say: "So if we are unable to define the ultimate lowest end cosmological scale, what will be the meaning of discrete scale self similarity relativity for higher cosmological scales?"
--------------------------------------------
I suggest you spend considerable time studying:
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
until you can see for yourself what Discrete Scale Relativity is all about.
Dear Mr Oldershaw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have started studying, understanding and appreciating concepts of discrete scale Relativity as given in your site. Obviously, it will take quite long time before I grasp fully all the concepts. But the concerns which I had expressed in last para of my comment 12 are not ill founded. I was reading your article "fractal universe" though updated long ago in 2003. See what you have mentioned in the last para
"If microlensing experiments verify the unique predictions mentioned above, however, we would still be faced with some important and very difficult questions. How many scales are there in all, a finite number or "worlds within worlds" without end? How strong is the degree of self-similarity between analogues? Why is nature self-similar, and why are scales separated by a factor of about 5x1017? Like past discoveries, this one too would come wrapped in enigmas."
Then see the following from the part Main Concepts on your site :
"The SSCP proposes that nature’s hierarchy extends far beyond our current observational limits on both large and small scales, and is probably unbounded in terms of scale, such that there are no largest or smallest objects (or Scales) in nature"
In above two paras, you have expressed the same views as indicated by me in last para of my comment 12 viz unboundedness of largest and smallest scales and infiniteness of nos. of cosmological scales. That is why I had expressed suspicion that electron may not be the smallest elementary mass particle. An electron per se may represent a solar system within itself like oursolar system. ( if self similarity is unbounded)
I am not stating at all that SSCM is wrong. On the contrary, it may represent not so appreciated some deeper aspect of Nature. But mainstream scientific community will demand more study and evidence before it incorporates it in their main body of knowledge. They will require examination of self similarity of all parameters at all cosmological scales viz mass of atom/nucleus vs mass of star/galaxy, mass of electron/quark vs mass of some discrete object at higher cosmological scales, speed of discrete sub atomic particles Vs speeds of stars and galaxies, behavor of forces at atomic scales vs behavor of forces at stellar and galactic scales.
But all the above studies will be of intermediate nature. Real challenge lies in identifying the lowest basic cosmological scales and then comparing all the properties of this scale step by step with each of higher cosmological scale.
Vinod Kumar Sehgal
vinodsehgal1957@yahoo.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi Vino...,
I think we agree on quite a few issues regarding a proper and adequate understanding of nature.
However, I am concerned by statements of yours such as:
"An electron per se may represent a solar system within itself like oursolar system."
There is a wealth of observational evidence that clearly shows that the electron could not be a self-similar analogue of the entire Solar System.
We must let nature guide us through empirical evidence, rather than trying to fit nature into our dubious preconceptions.
We must know the observational facts and then use pattern recognition to search for clues about the underlying principles and symmetries that unify nature.
Discrete Scale Relativity does exactly this. It is based on empirical evidence - a whole lot of it. It uses pattern recognition to discover the underlying discrete self-similarity of nature. Using the discovered principles, it leads to many definitive predictions. DSR has successfully predicted pulsar-planets before they were discovered, and it predicted trillions of unbound planetary-mass "nomad" objects (discovered by Sumi et al, Nature 18 May 2011), and it predicted the dearth of planets orbiting the lowest mass M dwarf stars (which has been verified). DSR has also passes about 39 additional fundamental retrodictive tests.
String theory, supersymmetry, and the rest of postmodern pseudo-physics that has kept theoretical physics in a Platonic cul-de-sac for 40 years cannot do this. These Ptolemaic fictions either cannot make definitive predictions, or they make plastic "predictions" that are effectively non-predictions, which can be easily finessed.
Your time spent studying the fractal cosmology website will be well-rewarded if you do so with an open mind.
Best,
RLO
To Mr Oldershaw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"An electron per se may represent a solar system within itself like our solar system."
I knew that statements like above do not conform to any empirical observations However, when you have agreed to the possibility that Discrete Scale Similarity may be unbounded on both largest and smallest scales, having innumerable nos. of cosmological scales, a logical extension is natural that below electron level also, another cosmological scale having similarity to higher scales may exist. We can not rule out this possibility at all. Otherwise what is the meaning of unbounded self similarity on lowest scale?
I am reading your articles and other contents on your site with open and honest mind. However, I do not refute and reject other theories like string theory, SSUY or M theory. Reason? Every theory has some positive as well as negative aspects. Though string theory carries no observational support and also based upon extra curled dimensions( which is not the fault of string theory but limitation of current technological capabilities) but it is marked by its simplicity. A single string explains creation of all matter and force particles from one one vibrating string
i) I can not understand why you have termed Discrete Scale Similarity (DSS) as Discrete Scale Relativity (DSR). Your site mentions that when similarity is exact, from one cosmological scale to next, DSS is called DSR. But are these reasons valid enough to term DSS as DSR. Relativity in Einsteinin's paradigm carries some sort of relativeness in speed (SR) in two frames or curvature (GR). What is the relativeness in DSS.?
ii) How to identify the benchmark lowest cosmological scale? An electron? or a quark? or nucleus? or a nutrino?
If we have to examine DSS on the attribute of mass, nutrino is the matter particle having lowest mass as on date, therefore, lowest cosmological scale should be taken from nutrino. What I want to convey that there should be no arbitrary convenience in identifying the benchmark cosmological scales but there should be some set principles.
iii) In nature there may be innumerable attributes of any system at any cosmological scale. M, L and T are the fundamental physical quantities. Apart from self similarity in these fundamental quantities, should self similarity be not exhibited on all attributes?
iv) Why startification has been done at 3 levels -- atomic, stellar and galactic? Definition of galaxy itself is arbitrary. Below and above atom , there are many levels
Vinod Kumar Sehgal
vinodsehgal1957@yahoo.com
To Mr Oldershaw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease see the following quotes from your article 'Infinite Fractal Universe"
"Some interesting questions immediately arise. Why are fractal hierarchies so ubiquitous in nature? By studying empirical phenomena within the observable universe, how much will we be able to learn scientifically about the parts of the Universe that lie beyond our observational limits? Does the infinite cosmological hierarchy have a bottom-most scale of sub-atomic particles as is currently thought, or is this another artificial limit to an infinite fractal Universe that actually extends without limits to ever-smaller scales?"
In above para also, you are expressing the possibility of scenario about which I had indicated in the last para of my comment 12. I had talked of the paradigm under which, in case of unbounded discrete scale similarity, electron may not be the lowest cosmological scale on the lowest end. There may be innumerable nos. of cosmological scales below electron level. If cosmological similarity has to be universally true on both larger and smaller ends, cosmological scales below electron should also reflect the self similarity as appearing at atomic level.
Cosmological scales similarity as being reflected at atomic or electron level may be an arbitrary one as known to Science as on date. But a theoretical question arises : How deep below we can go below atomic and electron level in cosmological scales? I suspect that at one bottonmost cosmological scale below atom/electron level, matter itself may vanish and with this question of further below cosmological scales also vanish.
Vinod Kumar sehgal
vinodsehgal1957@yahoocom
" all sunspots seem to live around 19.5 deg above or below the equator"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey don't.
Look at this photo upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Sun920607.jpg
In pre-Apollo days, we (US Air Force selenodesists) observed the profile of the Moon relative to that of the Sun during annular eclipses - assuming that, except for refraction which perturbed the lunar and solar profiles equally, the solar profile was a circle. Back then, Princeton"s Bob Dicke and his students also contrived ingenious experiments to test the sphericity of the Sun because an oblate Sun would perturb the precession rate of the perihelion of Mercury, which could be theoretically conflated with the effect of General Relativity. Those were fun days, but now they are only of historic interest - if even that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought the sun would bulge due to its rotation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn maybe its core does bulge. However, the surrounding plasma may be mixing so much that the "surface" is perfectly round.
Ref.Mr.vinodkumarsehgal & Mr Rloldershaw interesting to read your well detailed explanations ...Read this, it has a in-depth interlocking relationship for your comment's-"Supernovae of the Same Brightness, Cut From Vastly Different Cosmic Cloth Berkeley Lab researchers make historic observation of rare Type 1a Supernova" .
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