From: metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: Supermassive stars and HD limit (was Big Bang...)
Date: 26 Jul 92 21:03:07 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link


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

> The observational and theoretical literature on the plasma jets associated
> with radio galaxies and quasars flatly contradicts your concept that the
> jets are wakes. The observations of nearby jets are available with so much
> detail, and the consistency with plasma jet models is so good, that there
> is essentially no possibility that you can support your speculation with a
> physical model.

     Whoa.  You suggested that my model had jets ejecting quasars, and I was
saying that is not so.  I remind you that I previously had most radio jets
playing the same role as those in the Crab pulsar, for which a plasma jet
model is fine with me.  But I thought we had switched to discussing quasar
ejections.  Generally, jets do not point toward ejected quasars in quasar-
galaxy associations.  But in the few cases they do, "wake"-type jets seem
more viable than ejection-type.

> I would expect that any one trying to construct a new theoretical cosmology
> would want to spend a lot of time listening to people like me tell what
> they know about the (real) Universe.

     On that we are in complete agreement.  I really appreciate the detailed
information you are providing here.  It is invaluable to me, and if many
lurkers are following this discussion, they ought to be paying you tuition.

>>> Weedman says on p.29: "The sequence of events has been something like
>>> this: a curious fact is discovered within a given quasar sample ...
>>> somebody eventually [refutes] it.  ...   'That's unfortunate', comes the
>>> response, 'but notice there is a differenct curious fact in this new
>>> sample...'.

>> 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.

> Most extragalactic observers would dispute your use of the word "facts". In
> fact, that is what Weedman was saying: the statistical anomalies suggest
> hypotheses which can be tested with new samples, and so far the tests have
> failed. This discourages observers, who are always Bayesians---they only
> make observations when they expect to get something for their work. Check
> the references in Weedman's book.

     In using the word "facts" I was referring to your quotation of Weedman.
It's his choice of word.  I asked if you could cite an example of the Weedman
hypothesis: "a curious fact" about quasars which went away in newer samples.
I think neither of us can.  What Weedman means, of course, is that eventually
even the most curious of facts can be explained in the standard model by
imaginative theoreticians.  So the skeptical observers would find yet another
curious fact, which would eventually be explained, etc.  That's very
different from the spin which Weedman gives to it.  -|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.
Newsgroups: sci.astro