Magnetic Reconnection

Talk of the Devil. In yesterday's post, magnetic reconnection was quoted from a press release by www.space.com (see In the News 8th April, Venus Aurora) and today, the 9th April, at www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5882 we have a forum discussion with the title, 'Magnetic Reconnection Plasma Physics 101' – where it claims magnetic reconnection theory is a misunderstood topic. Hannes Alfven, we are told, rejected the concept, but what does the mainstream mean when it uses the term, magnetic reconnection? The process is described at http://en.wikepedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_reconnection and the post, by Michael Mozina, is excellent – and the comments worth digesting. Mozina writes – so what are these lines that acually reconnect in the plasma and generate particle kinetic energy? In the final analysis they are nothing more than two ordinary currents carrying filaments in plasma, per Birkeland Currents or plasma pinches. However. Michael Gmirkin at 10.05am introduces a dampener – magnetic field lines are not themselves plasma. They are a representation of the 'force' that would be felt by a charged particle placed proximal to the currents in question. A magnetic field is simply a force felt between nearby electric currents etc (http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wmfield.html ). The late James Hogan, former SIS member and popular author, described the process as an electrical earthquake causing the rearrangement of the field lines – not the other way round. It is an electric explosion, Gmirkin continues, an impulsive event. The underlying current changes which mandate the magnetic field lines to be redrawn.