I'm not aware of him getting into that kind of speculation although I'm sure others have looked at his observations and done so. Arp is an observational astronomer. From what I've read he is saying that quasar ejection is what appears to be happening but he has not described any mechanism. In my opinion the idea of white holes and repulsive gravity is just fanciful thinking. It sounds good in a science fiction novel but I don't think there is such a thing in our universe. I'm also not a fan of black holes. You might want to give me some flack on this point so let me explain first.
I do admit that while you can't directly observe a black hole there are some compelling secondary observations that clearly support the idea of black holes. There was a recent study of the stars at the center of our galaxy. If gravity is king then the orbits they exhibit make a strong argument in support of a massive black hole (lots of gravity but no visible light) at the center of the Milky Way. The plasma cosmologists are not convinced. Their view is that traditional cosmologists use the weakest force in the universe (gravity) to explain everything that is going on. In order to make their model work they have to conjure up entities that have huge gravitational fields (black holes and dark matter). Never mind that you can't detect them, you just have to have faith that they exist. I don’t think that God wants us to use faith when it comes to exploring the physical world we experience. That is an area where He wants us to use our intellect in our search for truth. Mathematical constructs have their place as they can be very helpful in pointing the way in our research efforts. The problem comes when the theorists become so enamored with their equations that they refuse to let go of bad ideas in the face of contradictory observations.
The electrical force is exponentially more powerful than the gravitational force. The plasma folks make a reasonable case that many of the observations we see can be better explained using the plasma (electrical) model. I think that one of the reasons the model has not gained a wider following is that it is incomplete. The description of the ‘galactic circuits’ they envision doesn’t point to what the source of this power might be. A theory needs to be presented that can either be built up or knocked down by observational research. Another factor that slows the progress in this field is that the traditional cosmologists are not required to study plasma physics. The traditional guys have a hard time understanding the plasma guys because they don’t speak the language (or the difficult math) of plasma physics. The old guard could fix this problem with the stroke of a pen, making the subject required for new astrophysics graduate students, but since the old guard got by without an understanding of plasma they see no need for the young turks to learn it. As you said, maybe another young patent clerk with the needed skill set will come along to make sense of it all. This brings to mind the light of Christ which is an entirely different subject that I won’t go into today. There is too much already on the plate in our discussion.
To move our conversation along we can look towards the earlier example of the engine that runs our galaxy and point out another possible solution. Anthony Peratt of the Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the leading plasma scientists in the world. His work in the area of galactic engines is most interesting. One advantage that plasma research has is that it is scalable. Because of this you can take known absolutes from the lab to gain some insight as to what the effects would be at larger and larger scales. As you can imagine, an electric force needed to run the galaxy is way beyond what we could ever produce in the lab.
The following was clipped from his Wikipedia write up.
Peratt developed a computer simulation of galaxy formation, based on research concerning Birkeland currents using (at the time) the fastest supercomputer available. Peratt was investigating laboratory scale Birkeland currents and used experimentally justified scaling laws to see what would happen at galactic scales. The book "The Big Bang Never Happened" (1991) by Eric Lerner gives an account of this. Peratt discovered the dynamic effects that occur in intense Birkeland currents, named Peratt Instabilities. These arc discharges occur in plasma torches, z-pinched plasma filaments, and high energy density electrical discharges. Peratt claims that evidence exists that the instability can also be found on astrophysical scales.
As I said, the language of the plasma guys is not what we see very often on Nova or in our popular science magazines. Peratt’s web page has a short flash video of the simulation spoken of in the Wikipedia article. Look in the upper left hand corner here.
So now that we have two models for our galactic engine, gravitational and electrical, neither of which can be seen in visible light. Which model is better supported with the observable data? Does the copious amount of x-rays and radio waves pouring out of the center of many galaxies give us a clue? The black hole crowd claims that they are thrown off as a result of matter going over the event horizon. This is another unverifiable theory as there is no way of testing it (just have faith brother). The plasma proponents say that x-rays and radio waves are routinely produced in the lab using the electrical force. We would have no x-ray machines if we needed to shield a little piece of a black hole to make it work.
By extrapolation, that means that the rest of the Universe should operate under the same rules as our own galaxy does.
Even though there is no proof, it does make sense that all galaxies behave the same way. My earlier comment was geared more towards the different areas within any given galaxy. In particular, the center of the galaxy is a vastly different place than our neighborhood regardless of which model you use. It would be extremely violent in either case, perhaps more so in the electrical model. The fundamental laws that we observe here on earth may become distorted in such a charged environment. Superconductivity is an example where this occurs. It went undiscovered until we had the technology to cool things to absolute temperatures. I’m confident that we’ll be surprised at how the galactic center works once it’s all been hammered out.
If you can't prove them wrong then you have to keep funding.
The main stream media get’s their stories from the old guard elites. My fear is that this group isn’t ready to give up their turf to a bunch of dissident scientists, many of whom come from an electrical engineering background. Oh the horror of it. I’m not sure they will ever gracefully accept the egg on their faces for leading us down a dead end path for the better part of a century.
The other thing that I have noticed is that sometimes we have to wait for the old guard to die off to give the new ideas opportunities.
This is so true. The Internet is changing the dynamic here. It gives the dissidents more of a voice.
As a gambling man though, I wouldn't bet on either QM or Relativity getting bumped off.
I will have to disagree with you here. I’m a grand unified theory kind of thinker. It remains the holy grail of physics and it is nowhere in sight yet but I do think that one day we will have a theory in place that ties it all together. Cheers.
You are right. He says that in the pictures it looks like a galaxy is budding a quasar. If he is right then all of our physics are wrong. Why should we reject the simpler explanation that it is two galaxies in collision? If there is a good simple explanation why pick an extreme explanation that has no theoretical backing.
The electrical force is exponentially more powerful than the gravitational force. The plasma folks make a reasonable case that many of the observations we see can be better explained using the plasma (electrical) model.
The primary problem with the Theory of Gravity is that the spiral arms of galaxies are rotating too quickly. The plasma guys may actually be right. I think that it will be combination of Gravity and electricity. The great breakthrough of the 1800's was Maxwell's Equations that combined Electricity, Magnetism, and Light. They are all the same thing.
So now we have 4 forces, Strong, Weak, Electrical and Gravity. Einsteins dream was to unite them and give us the GUT (grand unified theory). We are missing something and we don't know what it is : ) That is why they invented the mythical dark energy and dark matter. They are just a constant that they can throw into their equations to make them consistent with the observations of the Universe. Much like Einsteins famous mistake.
All of the history of Physics is pointing to a GUT. That means that the Plasma boys probably have part of the picture right and the Gravity boys have part of the picture right. Both are missing something. That something is probably going to come from the strong and weak forces. Someone is going to see the connection between the small and large forces and then the rest of us will say aha it is obvious : )
I will have to disagree with you here. I’m a grand unified theory kind of thinker. It remains the holy grail of physics and it is nowhere in sight yet but I do think that one day we will have a theory in place that ties it all together. Cheers.
Maxwell's Equations unified what were thought to be 3 separate things is the guide for the GUT. The GUT won't disprove them, it will explain the relationships. Just like Einstein didn't disprove F=MA he just refined it. That is what is going to happen. I think we just don't have enough pieces of the puzzle yet. Or the right question : )