[graham.d]

Strictly magnetism is a property of an electromagnetic field and it depends on the relative velocity of an observer whether it is perceived as a magnetic or electric field or a combination of both. That aside, I am sure that the magnetic fields on the sun are indeed generated by movement of hot ionised gas which would be an electric current. It is common to consider a field as "a line of force"; it refers to the force vector exerted upon a small test particle that can be introduced. In the case of an electric field, a small charge, gravity with a small mass and a magnetic field a theoretical small monopole (it can be calculated from a small dipole also).

I don't think there is much disagreemment other than your assertion about sunspots being hotter but I may be missing something.

[CreativeEnergy]

George Ellery Hale was well acquainted with the work of Michael Faraday and James Clark Maxwell. By that time, Maxwell's four light equations had been well established in the scientific community. Hale was well aware 1) that photons were the carrier of the electromagnetic force and 2) of electromagnetic induction, i.e., that a current could be generated by a magnetic field and a magnetic field could be generated by an electric current.

There is no doubt that the Sun generates a magnetic field by means of the dynamo process, i.e., resulting from the generation of electricity, which is not hard in a hot dense ball of plasma such as the Sun.

What causes the breaking up of the magnetic field approximately every 11 years is the differential rotation of the Sun's equator with respect to its polar regions. The magnetic lines of force get twisted around the equatorial regions because the equatorial regions are rotating considerably faster than the polar regions. You can actually see this with a moderately sized telescope with a white light solar filter or an H-alpha solar filter as sunspots move across the disk of the sun.

And if there are no magnetic lines of force along which plasma follows, then what do you call these from a TRACE image of our Sun?

[Bored chemist]

Re.
"To Bored Chemist
You said quoting me:
"As far as I know, only ferrous materials offer a shorter magnetic path than free space."
Shows how little you know.

The little I know has sufficed for more than 60 years. Please tell me what material or phenomenon offers a shorter magnetic path than free space at temperatures greater than 1,000 dgrees celsius. Such a material or phenomenon would be of great help to those working on the ITER Fusion reactor."
Catch the goal post as it flies past.
Suddenly "ferrous" has been replaced by "material or phenomenon offers a shorter magnetic path than free space at temperatures greater than 1,000 dgrees celsius."
Probably because I was perfectly correct in my initial comment.

So, to answer the question that you should have asked, Nickel, Cobalt, Gadolinium and a number of alloys such as the heusler alloys are not ferrous, but are ferromagnetic. (Gd stops being on a hot day)

Incidentally, to answer the question you chose to ask instead (and I suspect you were hoping to trip me up by doing so).
Any paramagnetic material will "shorten" the magnetic path.
One such material is atomic hydrogen (rather than the molecular form).
It may surprise you to find that this isn't in short supply on the surface of the sun.

"I fail to understand why a hurricane can be considered relevant to the topics under discussion in this part of the forum."
That says a lot.
Hurricanes don't have colour, but they certainly has an effect.
Magnetic fields don't have a colour, but they certainly have an effect.

[Wilf James]

CreativeEnergy
The lovely image from NASA is one I have used myself as an illustration of almost the opposite of what you are trying to imply with the image. The version I referred to was brighter and yellower. If you go back through the various postings on this top you will find a  reference to "Coronal Loops"

The gravity field between our Earth and the Moon looks good, doesn't it? I wonder why no artists have ever painted it or no photographers have had exhibitions of photographs of it. I must be a defect in my eyes but I have never ever been able to see a gravity field or a magnetic field.
I have one of those very very useful disc magnets on the end of a telescopic stick that I have had a look at while writing this. I could not see any trace of the magnetic field that pulled at the metal casing of an AA cell, even with a powerful magnifying glass. I had my eyes photographed today because I am a type two diabetic. The photos looked good in 10 inch diameter views on the display. There may be something wrong with my eyes that the opticians won't tell me about because I can't see a magnetic field. As seeing is believing, I have never believed that magnetic fields are visible.

I think that the arcs in the image are of ionised gas. If they are ionised gas, they will have invisible magnetic fields around them like an invisible pipe which contains them. I know that an electron beam in a cathode ray tube is not the same as a stream of ionised gas but the behaviour of an electron beam in a CRT indicates that it is contained within a cylindrical magnetic field that squeezes it to become a very narrow beam when it reaches the screen. Since a stream of ionised gas behaves in a very similar manner to an electron beam I presume that the arcs of ionised visible gas in the image are comparably constrained.

Please, before you make further comment about what I have written in my postings do some of the very simplest of experiments to see what electricity and magnetism are really like. Please do not echo what some books have claimed about magnetism and its effects without checking if the claims can be verified.

I did a one year course on Solar System Astronomy with Ian Nicholson at Hatfield Polytechnic when I was 47 and a mature student in 1983-4. I argued with him a lot because a lot of what he said was is direct conflict with what I had learned and EXPERIENCED as an electronic engineer. I am 74 and it is 2010 now. In 2000 I started to put my thoughts about astronomers' misconceptions about what electricity and magnetism are really like on my website. I have clarified my ideas a bit since but the thrust is still the same.

Anyone who refers to a magnetic line of force in an explanation is just quoting what someone else has written or said. He or she has never ever seen or experienced a single magnetic line of force.

It is strange but only last Sunday a good blind friend asked me if I could explain something he had seen when he was a boy before he went blind. He referred to the demonstration done by putting iron filings on a piece of paper over a bar magnet. He said that the teacher could not explain why when the procedure was repeated, the pattern looked similar but was not the same. It was always different each time the demonstration was repeated. He and his teacher were observant.

Sadly, a lot of people who have only seen the demonstration done once, think that the lines caused by strings of filings are an indication of where the magnetic lines of force are. As my blind friend's teacher had noticed, the lines are always in different places. Either there are no lines or an infinite number of them. There is no electronic instrument that can detect a magnetic line of force.

Please, in future, CreativeEnergy, treat any astronomical explanation that implies that magnetism does anything to move anything as one which has never been tested empirically. Magnetism can only induce currents in moving conductors, constrict steams of ionised gas or electron beams, or cause the Zeemann effect. It can NEVER appear by itself as many astronomers imply.

[Bored chemist]

You have already answered your own question.
The iron filings fall initially under gravity. When they are in the magnetic field, not only are they influenced by it, but they influence it- as you put it "only ferrous materials offer a shorter magnetic path than free space."
Since they do that in a non-linear way you have a non linear positive feedback system.
that's pretty much the condition required for chaotic behaviour.
No wonder it's never the same twice.

Also, since you haven't commented on my points I presume that you accept them ie
you shouldn't have moved the goalposts
and
hydrogen, which isn't rare, meets the criterion you set of being paramagnetic, even at high temperatures.

[CreativeEnergy]

Just because you can't see magnetic lines of force doesn't mean that I cannot infer their existence. I can't see quarks either or neutrinos, but I am pretty sure they exist.

You speak of an electron beam hitting a CRT. Have you ever seen an electron? Aren't you taking the word of someone else as to their existence?

And for the record, I have done plenty of experiments with electricity and magnetism....as a kid!

I also did plenty of experiments in physics classes in college. I, for one, found the evidence quite compelling.

[Wilf James]

Bored chemist
I regret that I used ferrous insted of ferromagnetic as a form of shorthand.
I am very familiar with most of the ferromagnetic materials as they were extensively used in my work before I retired.

The "colour" idea was sort of joke. Anything invisible has no colour. I intended to imply that anyone who says that a magnetic field is visible should be able to say what its colour is.

In my posting I have tried to confine my comments to the testable properties of electric currents and their magnetic fields.  Some people like to nit pick about shorthand expressions which may have been used to shorten an explanation.

For practical purposes almost all hydrogen on the sun is contained in thermally induced convective streams of ionised gas. These streams will have magnetic fields around them. The question of paramagnetism is unlikely to apply. Please note that I wrote on the sun and not in the sun.

[CreativeEnergy]

Do you have any evidence, contrary to the solid solar science that has been done, that sunspots are as you call them "solar hotspots", Wilf James? After all the title of this of this post is "Are sunspots actually solar hot-spots?"

It would appear that it is you who have formed a hypothesis, therefore it is you who must provide empirical evidence to support that hypothesis. Do you have any empirical evidence to support this tacit assertion?

If not, then I think this discussion is over. Actually, I think this discussion is over--at least for me it is.

[Wilf James]

CreativeEnergy
The point that I Have been trying to make is that magnetic fields are a PROPERTY of an electric current.
The do not exist by themselves.

All explanations referring to lines of force or just magnetic lines are explanations that claim that magnetism acts on its own and does something it can't do.

It seems that you have never read some of my earlier posts which explain why I am very happy to deal with electricity and magnetism that are invisible. There is the principle of Occam's Razor involved with electron streams. A cylindrical constrictive field around an electron beam is the only explanation for the way it behaves in a cathode ray tube.

Mr. Oersted was the one who demonstrated the presence of a magnetic field around a wire carrying a current. Then later the effect was found to apply to electron currents and streams of ionised gas. Much later still a strong magnetic field was used to deflect electrons into a circle around a cathode as they were attracted to an anode. the magnetron was developed. The operation of a magnetron can only be explained if electrons moving in a vacuum have a magnetic field around them in the same way that Oersted demonstrated the existence of a magnetic field around a wire.

There are a lot of things that I have observed in electronics that indicate the way electrons act in varying circumstances. Some people who observed the way energy and electricity act produced theories and laws that now are routinely used by all electrical and electronic engineers. These people include Oersted, Henry Faraday, Gauss, Tesla, Kirchoff, Ohm, Fleming, Ampere, Volt, Watt, Joule, Newton, Lenz and others.

We can never see electricity or magnetism but through countless experiments done by thousands of people the way these phenomena behave is extremely predictable.

[JP]

All explanations referring to lines of force or just magnetic lines are explanations that claim that magnetism acts on its own and does something it can't do.

Not true.  Magnetism can be observed by its interaction with matter, even if you don't know what currents have generated the field.  This is what is done in the sun, and it is inferred that the flow of plasma in the sun generates the fields. 

It would appear that it is you who have formed a hypothesis, therefore it is you who must provide empirical evidence to support that hypothesis. Do you have any empirical evidence to support this tacit assertion?

I completely agree with CreativeEnergy here.  You're using this thread to try to push your own theory about sun spots.  Can you provide scientific evidence for it?  In particular, can you address either of the following questions with actual calculations or formulae?

1) Why is the prevailing dynamo model for the generation of magnetic fields that Soul Surfer mentions wrong?  It explains the fields as resulting from the flow of plasma.

2) What predictions does your model offer that the current model doesn't?  Can you point to observations that your model makes that the current model doesn't account for?

[Bored chemist]

"For practical purposes almost all hydrogen on the sun is contained in thermally induced convective streams of ionised gas. "
For the practical purpose of taking pictures, people often use the H alpha line which arises from atoms of hydrogen.
Equally importantly, all the measurements of the zeeman effect (the direct evidence of a magnetic field) are based on hydrogen atoms.

You keep saying things like this which are  not true.

[Wilf James]

CreativeEnergy
You wrote:

"It would appear that it is you who have formed a hypothesis, therefore it is you who must provide empirical evidence to support that hypothesis. Do you have any empirical evidence to support this tacit assertion?"

The evidence I can offer is part empirical and part circumstantial.
1. There is an invisible solar wind that can be detected by its effects on the Earth's atmosphere.
2. The strength of the solar wind is greater when sunspots are visible on the sun.
3. The particles in the solar wind must have left the sun at a speed greater than the sun's speed of escape.
4. I deduce from 3 that there is a launching process for these particles at, in, or around sunspots.
5. The principal energy source in and on the sun is heat. I therefore think that heat is responsible directly or indirectly for the launching of the particles in the solar wind from the regions in or around sunspots.

According to quantum physics which I have no way of testing empirically, energy quanta in the form of photons are emitted from atoms when electrons in an atom fall from a higher energy level to a lower one.

I have read and believe that the heat of the sun is so high that some atoms lose their outer electron shells. This is partially confirmed by the fact that the solar wind is ionised. Ionised atoms are those which have lost electrons. Data from spacecraft indicate that the unneutralised proton density at the Earth's orbit is around 5 per cubic centimetre. This is confirmation (at least for me) that a lot of atoms that have left the sun have lost electrons.

Since the heat of the sun causes atoms to lose outer electron shells and thus become ionised, I PRESUME that more heat means more electrons lost.

If an atom is short of electrons, few if any electrons can fall from higher energy levels to lower ones. Consequently the ability of an atom to emit photons will be reduced. Since photon density is our way of determining if something is bright or dim, I DEDUCE that if something appears to be dim there aren't many photons coming our way from it.

Since a shortage of photons is associated with heat, and more heat means less photons, I DEDUCE that the darker parts of sunspots are regions where photons are scarce because of the enormous heat in these areas.

The solar wind does not emit photons and is invisible. There are no photons visible where at least part of the invisible solar wind is launched from sunspots. I PRESUME therefore that the sources of the solar wind at sunspots are also invisible. For me, invisibility means no photons. Where is the place on the sun where photons are scarcer than elsewhere on the sun?

[JP]

According to quantum physics which I have no way of testing empirically, energy quanta in the form of photons are emitted from atoms when electrons in an atom fall from a higher energy level to a lower one.

True, but that isn't the primary method by which the sun emits photons.  Photons can be emitted by anything that moves charges about, and the sun is constantly moving charges about by heating up molecules and jostling them around--not to mention the free electrons and ionized nuclei.  The heat energy in the sun gives a continuous emission spectrum that isn't due to the process you mention above.

This is the hole in your argument:

Wilf READ AND UNDERSTAND WHAT I SAID  05/08/2010 22:51:26 !!!!!

All materials above absolute zero radiate electromagnetic energy in the form of photons as a result of the movement of the atoms and molecules.  This radiation is called black body radiation and has a characteristic spectrum that depends on only the temperature of the material.  This has nothing to do with electrons changing energy levels which is a different process altogether.

see  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body for a bit more explanation

Soul Surfer pointed this out back on page 1.  It's a major error in your argument, since all your conclusions based on electrons jumping up and down energy levels as the source of sunlight are therefore wrong.

[Wilf James]

To JP and others.
I have had the impression that the sun is to hot to permit molecules to remain as molecules like H₂ and O₂. I have had the impression that the heat is such that not only do molecules split into their separate atoms but many of the atoms lose the electrons that could  bind molecules together.
If I am wrong about this then I can accept that I am wrong by the same standard as CreativeEnergy demanded from me - if there is empirical proof.

The point about something being in Wikipedia about blackbody radiation is of interest.
However, until items like Babcock's theory of sunspots is dealt with in Wikipedia I would not rely on Wikipedia as an authoritative source.

As I have said in previous posts, a lot that has been claimed in astronomy by extremely prominent astronomers is in direct conflict with the way electricity and magnetism work on Earth. These claims have been repeated almost parrot fashion for decades. A lot of these claims have been repeated in posts on this topic to decry what I have written.  It is therefore why I revert when I can to the very basic first principles which can't be disputed.

My original reason for postulating that sunspots are hot is that it is the most likely explanation for  the origin of a large part of the solar wind. Heat can launch prominences and smaller jet arcs. Magnetism cannot. If it is not heat that can launch a lot of invisible ionised material at a greater speed than the speed of escape from the sun from the region around sunspots, what can?

My hypothesis is that the apparently dark regions of sunspots are too hot to emit visible and heat photons. If, as many claim, these dark regions are cooler than the photosphere, how can they survive for weeks without being warmed up?
I think that the claim that the dark regions of sunspots are cooler than the photosphere (and somehow remain cooler) needs some evidence to justify the claim.

[JP]

It's very good to go back to first principles to check theories, but you're making a major mistake in your assumptions about how light gets emitted by matter.  All black body radiation requires is that charges in the matter due to heat energy.  The sun has charges.  Heat makes them vibrate.  Therefore you get blackbody radiation.  Blackbody radiation isn't an untested theory--it's been around for ages and has been experimentally confirmed, and can be observed in other celestial objects. 

Light is certainly released when electrons jump down energy levels and absorbed when they jump up levels within an atom or molecule, but that's not the primary method by which the sun generates light.  If it was, the sun would only generate discrete frequencies of light.  As it is, it's light is primarily a spectrum.  However, it does have absorption lines within that spectrum which correspond to molecular oxygen and helium (so those must exist on the sun). 

The problem with your argument is that hot spots on the sun would still emit blackbody radiation--even if the atoms dissociated and the electrons were free to wander about.

[Bored chemist]

Wilf,
There are two points here.
There are un-ionised atoms present in the sun's outer reaches, but not many. At that temperature most are ionised.
Because there are still some left I can point out that they are paramagnetic and so meet the requirement you asked about earlier. I can also probably find pictures of the sun taken by H alpha light.

However, as most of the sun's radiation is emitted by, relatively speaking, free charged particles as they collide with each other your ideas about energy levels are not relevant. That's why the dark spots are the cooler spots.

[Wilf James]

To JP & Bored Chemist
There are things I know through experience about physics - particularly when electricity and magnetism are concerned.
There is one thing that I believe but can't prove.
I believe that all light (including comparable radiation outside the visible spectrum) is transmitted by what are known as photons. This spectrum ranges from below the apparent temperature of the much cooled down residue of the Big Bang to beyond x-rays.

I note the references to "Black Body Radiation". What strange emanation is provided by such a "Black Body" that does not consist of photons. How is it detected if photons are not involved?  Is the "Black Body Radiaton" referred to different from the photon emissions I have been concentrating on? Does it consist of muons, pions, kayons, neutrinos or some other emanation that does not include photons?

For me, the blackbody MODEL is one which THEORETICALLY reproduces the PHOTON emissions of an unknown body when raised to a particular temperature.

There may be photon emissions from the dark areas of sunspots that are well outside the observable light, heat and radio spectra that we on Earth can observe.  However, as we can't observe whatever is radiated as light or heat, the general conclusion has been that there isn't any light or heat. I have concentrated on what can be observed in the conventional ways. The dark spots radiate less photons in the conventional heat spectrum than the photosphere but that does not prove that they are cool.

I refer back to first principles.
Particles leave the sun at a speed greater than the sun's speed of escape. These particles are invisible and a great number of them come from the regions associated with sunspots. These particles are launched outward from the sun by some means involving a great deal of energy. Whatever it is that launches these particles is invisible. As the main form of energy available in and on the sun is heat I conclude that the energy source which launches these particles is heat.

The "Black Body" radiation from the dark areas does not include many light and heat photons which is why they are considered to be dim and cool. Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates that an enormous amount of invisible energy is expended in or around sunspots. The fact that we can't detect it directly does not prove it is not there.

We have some basic facts. The sun is hot on its exterior. Because the heat is developed in the sun's interior, it is hotter inside than on its surface. The heat developed inside the sun is convected and radiated outwards. The particles coming from the regions around sunspots are also emitted outwards with an enormous amount of energy.

I refer back to Occam's Razor. The simplest cause for the emission of the particles is heat energy. I have yet to hear of another energy source that could launch the particles at the speeds necessary for them to leave the sun.

As I have said before, I can't see electricity or a magnetic field. The fact that I can't see these phenomena does not mean they are not observable through the effects they have. Something has the effect of launching particles at enormous speeds outwards from the sun. The fact that we can't see it does not mean it is not there. I think that something is heat.

If there was a Harry Potter and he could say "Accio charged particles" to draw them from the sun to the Earth, then a lot conventional physics would be different.  There isn't a Harry Potter and I have yet to hear of a launch mechanism for particles that does not involve the expenditure of a lot of energy. Could it be "Dark Energy" that launches the particles from sunspots? I don't think so. Unless there are some new fantastic discoveries about forms of energy we don't know about yet, I prefer to assume that the forms of energy we do know abut are responsible for what we observe happens.

[JP]

To JP & Bored Chemist
There are things I know through experience about physics - particularly when electricity and magnetism are concerned.
There is one thing that I believe but can't prove.
I believe that all light (including comparable radiation outside the visible spectrum) is transmitted by what are known as photons. This spectrum ranges from below the apparent temperature of the much cooled down residue of the Big Bang to beyond x-rays.

I note the references to "Black Body Radiation". What strange emanation is provided by such a "Black Body" that does not consist of photons. How is it detected if photons are not involved?  Is the "Black Body Radiaton" referred to different from the photon emissions I have been concentrating on? Does it consist of muons, pions, kayons, neutrinos or some other emanation that does not include photons?

Black body radiation is photons.  There are more mechanisms than electrons jumping up and down energy levels that create photons.  That is a major flaw in your logic.

Put another way, when you suggest that sun spots are hotter than their surroundings, but don't emit light (or detectable radiation), you're creating new physics.

[Soul Surfer]

We have tried our best!  Modorators please move this topic to the New theories madhouse

[Wilf James]

To JP
You said:
"Put another way, when you suggest that sun spots are hotter than their surroundings, but don't emit light (or detectable radiation), you're creating new physics."

Please read EXACTLY what I said.
I said that the radiation is not detectable in the usual heat and light parts of the spectrum. I meant that we know there is SOMETHING there but we can't detect it as the heat and light we know about.

I left out a factor which relates to what I have been saying about sunspots being a source of ionised particles. Babcock claimed that sunspots were caused by magnetic fields. If Babcock's magnetic fields can create sunspots, that is NEW physics.
Magnetic fields on Earth can't do anything physical as I have repeatedly explained in previous posts. (I can repeat their properties again if needed.)

Babcock and maybe others detected magnetic fields around sunspots. As I have said, a magnetic field is a property of an electric current. All contributors to this forum who deny my claim that sunspots are hot have apparently accepted that a significant part of the invisible solar wind originates somehow from around sunspots. You have apparently accepted that the solar wind from sunspots is launched at a speed greater than the sun's speed of escape. You have accepted that it is ionised.  What is an ionised stream of particles if it is not an electric current?  The stream of particles is invisible but there are magnetic fields detectable around where the stream comes from.

It becomes a bit of a circular argument but the observable factors all fit together. Sunspots are a region from which ionised particles are somehow launched at greater than the sun's speed of escape. Magnetic fields are detectable around sunspots. A stream of ionised particles is an electric current. An electric current has a magnetic field around it. The logical conclusion is that the magnetic field detected
around a sunspot is produced by the stream of ionised particles emitted from a sunspot.  The properties of magnetic fields around streams of ionised gases are known. A stream of ionised gas is constricted by the magnetic field that surrounds it. This leads to the conjecture that the stream coming from a sunspot is in the form of a jet.

We are familiar with visible jets of the sort that come from geysers and fire hoses. Both of these types of jet are propelled by mechanical energy. The geyser's jet is propelled by the mechanical energy produced by the expansion of boiling water into steam. The fire hose has a mechanical pump to make it work. Some form of energy projects the stream of ionised particle upwards and outwards from the sun. What is that energy if it isn't heat?

To Soul Surfer
Is it mad to wonder what can cause a lot of ionised particles to leave the region around sunspots?  It is mad to wonder what energy source can provide the necessary energy to propel the particles outward from the sun when no obvious heat is detectable?  If it isn't heat that does it, please tell me what form of energy propels the particles. If you can't offer an energy source other than heat for what has been observed, what can you offer that can explain how the invisible ionised particles are projected away from the sun at a speed greater than the sun's
speed of escape?