From: metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
Subject: Re: Supermassive stars and HD limit (was Big Bang...)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 02:01:55 GMT


dwells@fits.cv.nrao.edu (Don Wells) writes:

> Once more, I will repeat the line of argument I made in the recent
> sci.astro thread on plasma jets:

     I didn't monitor anything in that thread.

> the two optical jets in question are typical plasma jets. They are visible
> in the optical only because they are very nearby; in the radio their
> nearness enables them to be among the brightest sources in the sky. Their
> light is synchrotron radiation, just as it is in the radio. The morphology
> is essentially the same as in radio, just as you would expect for
> synchrotron radiation from a plasma jet.  There is a vast observational and
> theoretical literature on this subject, and it cannot be blithely
> dismissed. This literature gives no support to, indeed it contradicts,
> anyone who postulates that such jets are capable of ejecting either
> compact objects or cool hydrogen clouds.

     The jets eject the objects?  That's not the model I was referring to.
Supernova explosions eject the objects, and the jets are the residue
("wakes") in the paths of the ejections.

     I understand there is a full literature interpreting plasma jets in
standard models.  We are here considering a different model.  If this
supernova ejection idea has been "contradicted" in the literature, I have yet
to hear of it.

> TVF's Meta model sounds like a valiant attempt to build the physical
> theory, but already I can see that it hasn't yet come to grips with the
> full range of data known to me.

     Don't you specialize?  And don't most astronomers?  How can one or a
handful of astronomers proposing a new model be expected to come to grips
with even a reasonable fraction of the data that's in a single issue of the
ApJ?  New models have to start somewhere, and the gross tests come first.
Then if the results merit it, many more astronomers will test the model in
their own areas of specialization.

> Weedman says on p.29: "The sequence of events has been something like this:
> a curious fact is discovered within a given quasar sample; perhaps that
> quasars in a given magniture range lie closer than expected to peculiar
> galaxies. That observation cannot produce a meaningful hypothesis unless it
> can predict a result that will be found using a new, independent sample of
> quasars. Producing such a sample is tedious and involves a lot of work at
> the telescope, but somebody eventually does it. Upon reanalysis, the
> initial curious fact is not confirmed. 'That's unfortunate', comes the
> response, 'but notice there is a differenct curious fact in this new
> sample...'. So a new curiousity has to be tested, requiring yet another new
> sample. It can be readily appreciated why this becomes a frustrating game.
> Examples of such sequences of events can be followed through [8 papers in
> three sets]."

     A neat theory, but where are the specifics?  I can't recall offhand any
important facts in this area which went away in newer samples.  Quite the
opposite.  For example, on page 128 of the current (August) issue of Sky &
Telescope, right next to the supernova picture I referenced in another post,
is an article about a completely new, independent sample of accurate
redshifts which *confirm* Tifft's quantized redshift claims.  Whatever will
the standard model do with quantized redshifts, let alone time-variable
redshifts, as Tifft's latest results indicate?  -|Tom|-

-- 
Tom Van Flandern / Washington, DC / metares@well.sf.ca.us
Meta Research was founded to foster research into ideas not otherwise
supported because they conflict with mainstream theories in Astronomy.
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