Something Is Wrong With Aurora Borealis

...not with the aurora itself, but with the explanation how it is created!

I was recently watching some Discovery program and saw the explanation about how Aurora Borealis is created.
I was thinking this can not be right and let me tell why

here an explanation from Encyclopedia of Earth

The high-energy electrons and protons traveling down Earth's magnetic field lines collide with the atmosphere

traveling charged particles in an magnetic field experience a force perpendicular to it's traveling vector and perpendicular to magnetic field they travel through. F = q (v x B) ( read "vector F is equal to charge 'q' times the product of vector velocity 'v' cross magnetic field vector 'B' ")

electrons and protons DO NOT travel "down" the magnetic field !

then I looked at Physics Central and saw the video that is even more false!
from time index 3:00 in this video it is explained how the magnetic field of the solar plasma and the Earth's magnetic filed couple together...

traveling charged particle does create an magnetic field, but it is around the vector of motion and not perpendicular to it !

I'm not denying the physics in Aurora Borealis, I'm just saying it is a lie how they explain it to us !

does somebody has a real physical explanations ??

I have no idea, and how is irrelevant if I can't just sit back and enjoy the wonder of it.

Originally posted by KrzYma
I'm just saying it is a lie how they explain it to us !

Or maybe you don't know as much about physics as you think you do?

reply to post by pacifier2012


How is never irrelevant, it gives you a deeper appreciation.

Could they get trapped between the layers of the field and as new layer comes out and old ones "go in" as they do in their torus like fashion, they get forced en mass into the atmosphere.

reply to post by KrzYma

I suspect this is where someone made a mistake, your quote:

"... experience a force perpendicular to it's traveling vector and perpendicular to magnetic field they travel through. ..."

is not exactly correct. The Lorentz force is perpendicular to the PLANE containing the momentum vector (traveling vector) and magnetic field vector. This change allows a charged particle to spiral along a magnetic field line without dissipating energy.

Best regards,
Z

Love that Ma Deuce Goose!
2nd

It is completely possible that electrons travel along the same path as a magnetic field.

www.ic.sunysb.edu...:lectures:16
(sorry couldnt get the direct link to work, but if you click on lectures and then hit 16 you will be in the right place... dont need to watch the lecture, just look at the diagrams)


So the important thing to know is that suppose an electron that is moving at high speed encounters a magnetic field, it wont just suddenly deflect out of the path, all that occurs is that a force is applied to that electron. Now usually what happens is that a system will assume the lowest energy configuration while obeying the laws of physics.

With electrons in magnetic fields and the Aurora, the electrons travel down the magnetic field lines by spiralling around them. Much like the diagram shown in the link. So the electron although moving forwards, does not directly deflect away because it will spiral down the field until it hits the atmosphere where it will rapidly loose energy due to ionisation.

I think that is the basics...


The issue with many popular explanations is that they need to be reduced to the point where an everyday person understands them. It is not a lie or a misrepresentation, it is just a fact that if you say the word "ionization" to the layperson and they wont really know what you are talking about. So we say, oh the electron spirals down the magnetic field and hits the atmosphere and makes light, similar to your TV set (old CRTs) that explanation is both right and wrong depending on the level of understanding.

It isn't a lie, they just don't completely understand how it works yet. A real research scientist would say that he thinks it is this or that but real research scientists rarely write these things. Science of the time is based on our interpretations of what little evidence we have compiled. Give it another hundred years and they may figure it all out. What we know now may be joke material in a hundred years.

reply to post by rickymouse


It is actually pretty nicely figured out already, the mechanics of how it works is already solid.

reply to post by rickymouse


Non-relativistic behavior of electrons in a magnetic field is way old stuff. You do that maybe second semester classical physics. And it's piddly to do it in the lab. It's not like it's a big mystery, unless maybe you've never had physics past General Science Intro (no lab) 101.

edit to add: If no one understood it, CRT displays wouldn't have worked very well, eh? That's how they work. The electron beam is scanned across the screen with very good precision by curving a stream of electrons with a magnetic field. That's what that ball of wire on the back of the CRT is for.

reply to post by ErosA433


They know how it basically seems to work. What they do know is only a hundredth at most of what can be known. Now that we have the technology to look at it, with an open mind we will find a lot more to learn. To say you know everything is a joke. If you think you know everything than you cannot learn more.

reply to post by rickymouse

What they do know is only a hundredth at most of what can be known

Citation needed. No generalities, please.

Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by ErosA433

 

They know how it basically seems to work. What they do know is only a hundredth at most of what can be known.

Yes, and the ATS corollary goes something like this:

1) I don't understand it
2) therefore you don't either
3) it's clear that not *everything* that can be known about it IS known about it
4) and because of THAT, NOTHING is known about it and it might do anything at any time because magic

I dispute points 2 and 4. I agree that in time, we'll know more, that's the entire point of science and engineering.

However, to say "not everything that can be known about a subject is known, therefore magic" is a false premise. We know very well how magnetic fields affect moving charged particles. It's the basis of a TON of common devices, from speakers to CRTs. It's OLD. The interesting bits are now at the weird fringes of conditions, but for jellybean questions like "do moving electrons spiral around magnetic field lines" are very well known old hat stuff.

edit to add: I've got a lot of books in the work library on charged particle optics. If you don't think a lot is understood about this stuff, go google "electron optics" and "charged particle optics", there is a ton of material, but the books will give you the math. Some of the books I've got are from the 40's, this stuff doesn't change much.

reply to post by Bedlam


In the last thirty years our understanding of the magnetosphere and atmosphere has jumped a hundred fold. This is because we are starting to understand the interaction of the sun and the cosmic particles on it because we can now see them with our technology. Maybe the basic stuff hasn't changed much but the parameters of the knowledge are expanding. In the next thirty years at the present rate, I feel that our knowledge of things will expand a hundred fold again. If Science did not think so why would they still be doing all the research. This is common knowledge of those in science. It takes time and curiosity of observances to find the next step.

What was known in the forties was only speculation of things by observances and the whole reasoning was not understood well. Until they were able to get in space and actually observe what was happening they had little chance of advancement. There is no magic here, I never said there was. Science is about learning not about standing still and bragging about what you know.

reply to post by rickymouse


However, learning new things isn't an indictment of knowledge acquired.

And yes, in the 40s they actually really did understand how electrons are perturbed by magnetic fields. To say that moving electrons won't spiral in a magnetic field is to ignore the obvious - they do.

So the OP's premise that this doesn't happen is false. Yes, that's what happens. Now, you're sort of trying to move the goalposts by saying bla bla we don't know everything about the ionosphere. No, come back to the point, which was that electrons don't cause auroras or we're being lied to because some overly simplified statement of the right hand rule's math parts says otherwise.

And that point is wrong, and we do understand the basics (and beyond) of how charged particles interact with magnetic fields.

Originally posted by Bedlam
reply to post by rickymouse

 

However, learning new things isn't an indictment of knowledge acquired.

And yes, in the 40s they actually really did understand how electrons are perturbed by magnetic fields. To say that moving electrons won't spiral in a magnetic field is to ignore the obvious - they do.

So the OP's premise that this doesn't happen is false. Yes, that's what happens. Now, you're sort of trying to move the goalposts by saying bla bla we don't know everything about the ionosphere. No, come back to the point, which was that electrons don't cause auroras or we're being lied to because some overly simplified statement of the right hand rule's math parts says otherwise.

And that point is wrong, and we do understand the basics (and beyond) of how charged particles interact with magnetic fields.

The only way to advance is to learn more. Human curiosity is why we have advanced to where we are, to advance farther we must keep learning and recognize and incorporate our mistakes into our knowledge.

Funny to suggest that I think we know it all... all i was suggesting is that, what makes all those pretty colours and the beautiful phenomenon that the OP asked about is very closely known.

That is quite different to fully understanding the dynamics of the atmosphere, and everything that is occurring within it. I never suggested that and my comment should not be taken that far out of context.

But I agree with the above posts... because there are unknowns it doesn't mean that we know nothing which seems to be a common theme on ATS sometimes, which is unfortunate because those comments more often than not contribute less, than those who try to help offer information and explanations of what physics knows.

To suggest that we have stopped thinking and stopped being curious about the world around us is quite wrong. Also, to suggest that myself, being a professional physicist is not interested in the advancement of knowledge is quite frankly absurd

reply to post by rickymouse


This seems like a non-sequitur - I'm not debating that at all. Back to - yes, moving charged particles spiral in a magnetic field. Not - what are the limits of knowledge et al. Philosophy is over ---> there. Different thread.

Besides, you're preaching to the choir. I'm all about new knowledge. What I'm not about is the debate that since we don't know everything, then all our knowledge is wrong and anything can happen at any time. Down that road, there's never any knowledge, because you have to assume that nothing is correct and everything you know is wrong and pointless. It doesn't work that way. We learn incrementally for the most part.

I know that sort of buzzkills the 'I want magic' thing, but that's the way it goes.

The way I see it is that science is like a model of the local universe. The local universe might be our body, our family, our tribe, a group of tribes, a country, a continent, a world, a solar system, a galaxy, the sub-atomic scale, the quantum scale, etc. The local universe expands outward and inward as our measurement devices improve and calculations improve. As our local universe expands, our theories grow to accommodate them. All seems to make sense at each stage.

If you take the scientific model from 2000 years ago and apply it in today's world it'll fail miserably. It fails so bad we can barely call it science. However, it was the best they had back then and it did its job considering the limitations of their measurements and knowledge. Today's theories similarly work with reaffirming accuracy. However, as we go into the future we will discover greater realities and our theories will have to be tweaked to keep pace. It's just the way things are.

Note that this creates a false sense of knowing in each generation. Because the theories so well fit the established reality, it creates the illusion that there's little more to know. This is not to say that what we know isn't important, but rather to say it's relatively important.

The mistake people make is assuming science started in 1700 or 1800 or 1900 and that it never existed before that date. This is just untrue. Rationalizing wasn't recently invented!! We've always been doing it. We just have cruder and cruder methods of resolving our environment. As we go into the future, the methods become more and more refined as our local universe grows.

What I'm saying is our theories are the closest thing to the truth right now. This is true only for the local universe that we've observed and measured with some confidence.

Local universe can be thought of as time & space and whatever other dimensions there're. Just factor into it our ability to measure with some confidence to determine what it's.