Cluster’s "Magnetic Reconnection" Data and the Big Picture
September 19, 2008
The Cluster results which came in several weeks ago gave scientists a
new view of "magnetic reconnection." But have their interpretations
of the data given us a complete picture of what’s going on or did they miss
the bigger picture? It seems they’ve left electricity out of the equation once
Left: Magnetic field lines around a magnetic null observed by Cluster.
Image credit: He, J.-S. et al.
Right: Figures 1 & 2 from Real Properties of Magnetic Fields in the Cosmos.
Image credit: Don Scott.
Thunderblog, readers were informed that where we see magnetic
fields we must also consider the source electric currents. Failure
to do so will only lead to confusion over cause and effect relationships.
Thunderblog, electrical engineer Don Scott noted that astronomers
have been doing a poor job of ‘reinventing the wheel’ with respect to
magnetic fields seen ubiquitously in space. Rather than adhering to the
well-defined, well-known relationship of electricity to magnetism, and
vice versa, astronomers attempt to describe magnetic fields as prime
movers and shakers, independent of their relationship to the electric
currents required to spawn them.
release has presented current findings from the Cluster team,
with regard to the process astronomers have dubbed "magnetic
reconnection." Magnetic reconnection has been implicated in a
great many solar and astrophysical processes. Thus, its study is of
paramount importance to astronomers, who do not yet understand how
"Magnetic reconnection" deals with the apparent topology
changes of magnetic field lines (a visualization tool denoting the
direction and strength of a magnetic field). Astronomers claim that
magnetic fields themselves play the dominant role in physical interactions
and in the release of associated energetic outbursts of x-rays, etc.
However, they appear to forget that the strength of a magnetic field
(and thus the topology of its field lines) is directly dependent upon
the strength of the electric current generating it. They also forget
that magnetic fields are always a smooth continuum and complete
"circuit" so-to-speak. Field lines are not ‘real’ entities
that can be snapped, broken, rearranged, coiled up, wiggled like a
slinky, or many of the other mystical processes ascribed to them by
astronomers. They simply vary with their source currents. When current
strength goes up, so does the strength of the magnetic field. This is
how the electromagnets used in particle accelerators and other industrial
processes work. If the current is removed, or the associated charged
particles are set into random motion (disrupting current flow), the
magnetic field collapses.
Dr. Charles W. Smith is a Senior Research Scientist at the University
of New Hampshire with interests in the solar wind, interplanetary
magnetic fields, and the interaction of the solar wind with planets
and particles. In answering a
electricity and magnetism, Dr. Smith made a surprising confession that
should embarrass many proponents of "magnetic reconnection."
Question: Is there any way a magnetic field can be stopped or broken?
This admission should give astronomers pause... Magnetic fields
cannot be cut or broken! They are strictly
dependent upon electric currents.
Answer: You can't cut magnetic fields ... [t]here are a couple of ways
to describe why you can't cut magnetic field lines in the sense that you
would create two "ends" of a string when you cut it, but it
all comes back to the assumption that there are no magnetic monopoles ...
If they are found, then we know how to revise the theory of magnetism to
allow for "cut" field lines, but so far those changes have not
Then, if you want to take the next step, Google "magnetic
reconnection" and open a whole new world of questions regarding
the cutting of magnetic field lines.
Dr. Charles W. Smith
Dr. Charles Smith, we salute you for your candor!
In fact, the late Nobel prize-winning plasma physicist Hannes Alfvén
and the more contemporary electrical engineer Don Scott heartily agree
that "magnetic reconnection" is an incorrect paradigm and that,
according to Maxwell and Ampere, electricity and magnetism are intimately
connected and inseparable. Astronomers, electrical engineers and physics
buffs can see Alfvén’s paper
layers and circuits in astrophysics and Don Scott’s paper
Properties of Electromagnetic Fields and
Plasma in the Cosmos for additional technical details.
The problem seems to be, at its root, a mistake of confusing cause
and effect. Astronomers appear to be talking about the byproduct
physical effect (magnetic fields) as though it were the prime mover
and shaker (in this case, magnetic fields find their genesis and
their strength based in the behaviors of electric currents).
A private observation (reproduced here with permission) by science
fiction author James P. Hogan cogently sums up the cause and effect
Energy released in an earthquake can cause upheavals of the terrain,
which will reconfigure the contours on a map of the locality. I think
what's happening is a confusion of cause with effect, in which [by
analogy] "contour reconnection" is supposed to have caused
the earthquake. If I've got right what Don Scott's saying, changes in
electric currents alter the contours of the field lines that depict
the strength and direction of the magnetic field system the currents
Responding with a parallel analogy, I wrote:
Changing the density or temperature of a region of the atmosphere will
change the contours of weather maps. But saying that the contours
themselves are real entities or "do things" is erroneous.
In the end, it's a change in the atmosphere itself that causes the
contours on the map to have to be redrawn, not the other way around.
Do the changing contours on weather maps hold and then release
If "magnetic reconnection" is not the route to an answer,
then how should we proceed? Are we back to square one? Thankfully,
the answer is “no.” Electrical engineer Don Scott offers a
road back to the world of legitimate science in his paper (mentioned above).
Figures 1 and 2 from Don Scott’s paper have been reproduced above
(for reference), along with a pivotal image of the magnetic field
lines observed in the course of the Cluster mission’s observation
In figure 1, we see the typical diagram of adjacent magnetic field
lines offered by proponents of magnetic reconnection. This image
matches closely the configuration of magnetic fields seen by Cluster,
In figure 2, however, Don Scott offers astronomers a glimpse of the
"big picture" of what is actually going on. This
figure is a diagram of two interacting parallel electric currents and
their magnetic field lines. It is crucial for astronomers and physicists
to understand the context of their observations. Figure 2 gives them
In essence, what is being observed is a pair of interacting electrical
currents and their byproduct magnetic fields. In Figure 2, both currents
"directions" are pointed away from the viewer and the diagram
is a perpendicular 2D cross-section.
In case anyone wishes to verify that the diagram is correct, they need
only peruse the Wikipedia article on
“Electric current produces a magnetic field. The magnetic
field can be visualized as a pattern of circular field lines
surrounding the wire.
Electric current can be directly measured with a galvanometer,
but this method involves breaking the circuit, which is sometimes
inconvenient. Current can also be measured without breaking the
circuit by detecting the magnetic field associated with the
If one flips the direction of the blue arrow and the +/- signs
(denoting current direction) in the above diagram, one must also
flip the direction of the red arrows (denoting magnetic field direction).
Then the diagram(s) will show good accord with one another.
Figure 1 from Don Scott’s paper is an enlarged view of the region
inside the central box of figure 2. The implication, therefore, is
that the magnetic fields diagrammed in "magnetic reconnection"
are only a partial snapshot of a larger electrical circuit diagram.
Upon understanding this fact, the cause and effect relationship becomes
clear. Parallel electric currents will produce (as a byproduct effect)
the magnetic fields and the "null point" in the center of
Figure 1 where the magnetic fields cancel out.
Where astronomers see changes in the magnetic field topology (such as
that in Figure 1), it is now possible to understand the source of the
changes rests in changes to the currents depicted in Figure 2.
Another colleague made the following observation in private correspondence:
So it appears that Cluster’s 'A' and 'B' "null points"
are a down the barrel view of two Birkeland current filaments with
current running along the edges... That makes these "null
points" merely the electromagnetic calm in the 'eye of the
In fact, this is a cogent observation. Electric currents in
plasma tend to adopt a
structure, with parallel currents braided around each other. This
structure can also be fractal, insofar as (from the bottom up) small
currents may entwine around each other to form a larger filament,
those larger filaments may entwine around each other into larger
filaments and so on or (from the top down) large filaments may be
composed of smaller braided filaments, which may themselves be
composed of even smaller braided filaments.
The latter observation is itself significant, as it offers a simple
explanation of the related
release describing a filamentary electrical interaction between
the sun and the Earth (one predicted by Norwegian physicist Kristian
Birkeland circa 1908 in his monograph
The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition 1902-1903). Granted
the THEMIS news release about the northern lights is also couched in
the language of "magnetic reconnection" and "magnetic
flux tubes" (they fail to mention what exactly is doing the
“The satellites have found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting
Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun,” said David Sibeck,
project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md. “We believe that solar wind particles flow in along
these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras.”
While electrical interaction is not directly mentioned in the press
release is is strongly hinted at by the fact that they speak of "solar
wind particles" (charged particles, such as electrons, protons or ions)
flowing along magnetic field lines, providing the energy for geomagnetic
storms and auroras.
A magnetic rope is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much
like the twisted hemp of a mariner's rope.
currents" tend to flow along magnetic field lines (hence,
their alternate name "field-aligned currents").
page associated with the THEMIS news release also offers a more direct
confirmation that the phenomenon has an electrical characterization.
Image credit: Jonathan Eastwood/NASA. Original caption: Flux
Ropes Power the Magnetosphere! THEMIS discovered a flux rope
pumping a 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic.
The "magnetic flux ropes" have been directly characterized
as a 650,000 Amp current. We agree wholeheartedly that these features
should be referred to in explicitly electrical terms.
As mentioned above, electrical currents in plasma will tend to adopt
a filamentary structure, as demonstrated by your garden-variety plasma
lamp available at most novelty stores. Those filaments may also be
composed of sub-filaments, and so on. Thus the description of the
"flux ropes" (a 650,000 Amp current flowing between the
sun and the Earth) as being braided like the hemp of a mariner’s rope
appears to be perfectly apt and, moreover, expected under an electrical
It seems that we have finally arrived at an integrated and sensible
real-world interpretation of Cluster’s magnetic field data set. Moreover,
it expands our understanding from simply talking about magnetic fields,
without respect to their progenitors, to a fuller discussion of cosmic
electrodynamics. Moreover, the discussion can take place without
resorting to unproven and incorrect "new physics!"
Hannes Alfvén would be proud!
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Michael Gmirkin is a technology enthusiast with a keen interest
in exploring the electrical nature of the universe.
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