The Electric Sky

Surfing the web, I ran across The Electric Sky by Donald E. Scott.  It is a fresh breeze in cosmology and astrophysics.  Dr. Scott is an electrical engineer who thinks that physical scientists have gone astray with their theories of galactic and solar theory.  The key word is plasma.  Many astrophysicists ignore the existence of plasmas in space.  Dr. Scott thinks this is a serious problem.

Before the space program it was assumed that space was empty.  Space probes have shown that not to be the case.  Space is full of plasmas, fields of atoms in random shapes.  The technical definition is that a plasma is a fourth state of matter distinct from solid or liquid or gas and present in stars and fusion reactors; a gas becomes a plasma when it is heated until the atoms lose all their electrons, leaving a highly electrified collection of nuclei and free electrons. "Particles in space exist in the form of a plasma."

From Amazon.com's review of the book: "A Challenge to the Myths of Modern Astronomy. It is clear that electric plasma research affords simpler, more elegant, and more compelling insights and explanations of most cosmological phenomena than those that are now espoused in astrophysics. This book contains astronomical science for the expert written for the public."

At the heart of it, Scott is saying that astrophysics has lost its way.  They are inventing many, many particles (dark matter, dark energy) and ideas (like black holes) that cannot be seen or measured to explain elements of atomic and galactic theory when a far simpler explanation exists. His most amazing conclusion (in my opinion) is that the sun is not driven by fusion reactions.  The sun gets its energy from the electrical power in the Milky Way. The fusion reactions near the sun's surface are incidental to the overall power of the sun.  There is also some suggestion that the Big Bang never happened.

We know that Newtonian physics cannot explain the universe.  Newtonian gravitational theory does not explain the shape of galaxies. Gravity is simply too weak to contain a galaxy.  Furthermore, the motion of galaxies makes no sense.  Stars in the outer limbs of the galaxy should be moving faster then those closer to the center. But they don't.  They move at the same rate.

Scott shows over and over that the only explanation for what we observe is electromagnetic phenomena, not gravity,

I recommend this book to anyone who wants an educated layman's view of the controversy.