Scientific Censorship of Wikipedia: Magnetic Reconnection

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Update, I’ve written an article where I try to describe the scientific issues at stake in layman’s terms here.

Recently I was banned from editing the magnetic reconnection page on Wikipedia after adding a criticism section to the article main page.

As you will see below, the entire section is fully sourced by numerous peer reviewed publications and meets the minimum Wikipedia guidelines for content.  After adding this section, a handful of people decided they didn’t like what I had to say so they set about deleting this section of the article without any justification.

In preventing this vandalism to the page, I was issued a “Block” which prevents me from making edits to Wikipedia.  Of course, they claimed I was engaging in an edit war.  This is ridiculous since engaging in an edit war is not the same as preventing vandalism.

Now I admit that the section may not read in an encyclopedic manner, but that is not grounds for deletion since the content can be edited for style without deleting the entire section.  The bottom line is that the criminals in charge of the “magnetic reconnection” page are engaging in scientific censorship to prevent science that refutes their lies from being placed on Wikipedia.

Anyone reading this that agrees with my position should add the criticism section back into the article and tell the liars to stuff their junk science where the sun doesn’t shine.

For more papers that refute “magnetic reconnection” and “frozen-in magnetic fields” look here.

The censored Wikipedia criticism section of magnetic reconnection:

Hannes Alfvén, the founder of magnetohydrodynamic theory, became critical of the reconnection concept after determining that neither the double layer nor circuit could be derived from magnetofluid models of plasma.[9] Because of the quasi-neutrality of plasma, Alfvén felt that any theory proposing to account for energy transfer by means of a double layer must be conducted using particle models and circuit theory in order to comply with Kirchhoff’s circuit laws.[10]

Alfvén was explicit in his condemnation of the reconnection concept, calling the formalism that had built up around reconnection pseudo-science. Alfvén even went so far as to call his own beliefs in the “frozen-in” concept “absurd” and “pseudo-pedagogical”.[9]

Alfvén went on to describe the double layer energy transfer mechanism thusly[9]:

A simple mechanism of explosion is the following. The double layer can be considered as a double diode, limited by a slab of plasma on the cathode side and another slab on the anode side. Electrons starting from the cathode get accelerated in the diode and impinge upon the anode slab with a considerable momentum which they transfer to the plasma. Similarly, accelerated ions transfer momentum to the cathode slab. The result is that the anode and cathode plasma columns are pushed away from each other. When the distance between the electrodes in the diodes becomes larger the drop in voltage increases. This run-away phenomenon leads to an explosion…

Carlqvist ( 1969, 1982a,c) finds that in a relativistic double layer the distribution of charges Zn+(x) and n_(x) can be divided into three regions: two density spikes near the electrodes and one intermediate region with almost constant charge density. The particles are mainly accelerated in the spikes; whereas, they move with almost constant velocity in the intermediate region. Examples are given of possible galactic DL voltage differences of 10^12 V. This means that by a straightforward extrapolation of what we know from our cosmic neighborhood, we can derive acceleration mechanisms which brings us up in the energy region of cosmic radiation.

In describing how this circuit theory view of double layer formation and energy transfer could be applied to Earth’s magnetosphere[9]:

In the auroral current system the central body (Earth and ionosphere) maintains a dipole field (Fig. 7). B1 and B2 are magnetic field lines from the body. C is a plasma cloud near the equatorial plane moving in the sunward direction (out-of the figure) producing an electromotive force

which gives rise to a current in the circuit C1,al,a2,C2 and C1. The circuit may contain a double layer DL with the voltage V, in which the current releases energy at the rate P = I V which essentially is used for accelerating auroral electrons. The energy is transferred from C to DL not by high energy particles or waves (and, of course, not by magnetic merging or field reconnection). It is a property of the electric circuit (and can also be described by the Poynting vector, see Fig. 7).

According to Boström (1974) and Akasofu (1977), an explosion of the transverse current in the magnetotail gives an attractive mechanism for the production of magnetic substorms (see Fig. I 1). Boström has shown that an equivalent magnetic substorm circuit is a way of presenting the substorm model. The onset of a substorm is due to the formation of a double layer, which interrupts the cross-tail current so that it is redirected to the ionosphere.

In the same paper, Alfvén went on to give circuit descriptions of the heliospheric current system, double radio sources, solar prominence circuits, solar flares, magnetic substorms, and interstellar double layers.[9]

Carl-Gunne Fälthammar, a close friend of Alfvén’s, set about describing the problems related to the integration of two plasma parcels across time and space, stating[11]:

The second concern is that the construct of moving field lines is sometimes confused with the concept of moving flux tubes. A flux tube can be thought of as an ensemble of field lines that are identified by their low energy plasma, which moves at the E×B/B2 velocity. Some researchers have asserted that as the plasma moves from region A to region B at this velocity, the field lines that were at A are later at B, so the magnetic field lines moved together with the plasma. This conclusion is wrong for two reasons. First, it is meaningless to assert that a field line that was at A is now at B, because there is no way to identify or distinguish one magnetic field line from another. Second, the concept of moving magnetic field lines is reasonable if it is used only for visualizing the temporal evolution of the magnetic field, and then, only if equation B × curl [B(E•B/B2)] = 0 is satisfied. This point is emphasized by the fact that there are an infinite number of field line velocities that produce the correct temporal evolution of the field when equation B × curl [B(E•B/B2)] = 0 is satisfied [Vasyliunas, 1972].

Fälthammar also clarified and confirmed Alfvén’s theories of astrophysical electric double layers based on observational evidence returned from the FAST satellite program.[12] The FAST team concluded that parallel electric fields were responsible for charged particle acceleration in the auroral kilometric radiation region, and may be a fundamental particle acceleration mechanism in astrophysical plasmas.[13]

It is also known that whistler waves are a by-product of a beam plasma discharge, which itself is a type of double layer explosion. [14]

It should be noted that before the ignition of BPD, the double layer becomes unstable, and large amplitude potential fluctuations are observed. Figure 9a shows the fluctuations in the local electric field as measured by the diagnostic electron beam. The electric field fluctuates at a frequency of approximately 1 kHz.

Donald Scott went on to further admonish the theory of reconnecting field lines, concluding that[15]:

Maxwell showed that magnetic fields are the inseparable handmaidens of electric currents and vice versa. This is as true in the cosmos as it is here on Earth. Those investigators who, for whatever reason, have not been exposed to the now well-known properties of real plasmas and electromagnetic field theory must refrain from inventing “new” mechanisms in efforts to support current-free cosmic models. “New science” should not be invoked until all of what is now known about electromagnetic fields and electric currents in space plasma has been considered. Pronouncements that are in contradiction to Maxwell’s equations ought to be openly challenged by responsible scientists and engineers.

 

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