The Electric Sky – Interview with the author

The Electric Sky
The Electric Sky

“If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If…


The ‘Spiral Galaxy’ at Saturn’s Pole

Poincaré, at the conclusion of the preface to his book, ‘Hypothéses Cosmogoniques’, states: “One fact that strikes everyone is the spiral shape of some nebulae; it is encountered much too often for us to believe that it is due to chance. It is easy to understand how incomplete any theory of cosmogony which ignores this…


Nobel Prize for Big Bang is a Fizzer

COBE-WMAP
COBE-WMAP

“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe them.” —George Orwell Consensus discourages dissent… It is the enemy of science, just as it is the triumph of politics. A theory accepted by 99 percent of scientists may be wrong. Committees… that decide which projects shall be funded are inevitably…


The Real Impact of Victoria Crater

Victoria crater on Mars
Victoria crater on Mars

“I don’t like the ‘terrorist geology of impact’, which is not the same thing as saying that no impacts have ever occurred.” —V. Axel Firsoff. One of the key arguments used to support the impact origin of craters in the solar system is that they seem similar to terrestrial explosion craters. However, superficial appearances can…


Voyager Probes the Sun’s Electrical Environment

Voyager
Voyager

“…with his [Birkeland’s] extraordinary intuition he had a feeling for the huge electrical importance of the universe. Future research may show that such messages from the sun are equally important to us as Galileo’s understanding of messages from the stars when he took his telescope and studied space for the first time.” —Sem Sæland, memorial…


Grey Matter vs Dark Matter

So-called proof of dark matter
So-called proof of dark matter

“And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space, ’cause there’s bugger-all down here on Earth!” —Eric Idle from The Galaxy Song. On August 21the Chandra X-Ray Observatory website released the news: NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter This composite image shows the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, also known as the “bullet cluster.”…


The Madness of Black Holes

Empty hole where black hole should be
Empty hole where black hole should be

“We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one new delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first. … Men, it has been well said, think in…


The IEEE, Plasma Cosmology and Extreme Ball Lightning

The earliest eyewitness sketch of a ball lightning fatality?
The earliest eyewitness sketch of a ball lightning fatality?

This is a report on a few aspects of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS 2006), held in Michigan earlier this month. The IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology, with more than 365,000 members. The labours of these large numbers of…


Watch This Space

Wal Thornhill
Wal Thornhill

There will be no news item this month due to attendance at an International Plasma Science Conference and other meetings in the US. It is hoped that some of the results of the meetings will be available for posting late June. These are exciting times for plasma cosmology and the ELECTRIC UNIVERSE®. Thank you for…


Venus isn’t our twin!

The south pole of Venus
The south pole of Venus

“You are not looking at a twin [Venus] to the Earth at all. There are very many substantial differences, ..the differences are so great it makes you wonder whether you could ever produce a twin of the Earth in some other solar system when you can’t do it in your own.” – S. Ross Taylor,…