shijing
The Living Force
Dark Matter, Missing Planets, and New Comets by Tom Van Flandern
Product description from Amazon:
This book covers a lot of ground, and could probably be considered Van Flandern's magnum opus. It's divided roughly into two parts: the first describes Van Flandern's "Meta Model" which tackles concepts like gravity, quantum theory, the nature of light, and dark matter. The second develops his "Exploding Planet" hypothesis.
I don't have a lot to say about the first part, partly because I don't have enough background to evaluate it. He develops a theory of gravity based on what he calls "C-gravitons", which was critiqued in part in this thread. With a tip of the hat to the participants on The Two-Slit Experiment thread, he also argues that "electrons, light, and other quantum objects propagate as pure waves; but they may cause the emission of a short-lived particle upon encountering matter" in his discussion of the Bell Inequality. He also rightly critiques the Big Bang theory, including a discussion on things like cosmic microwave radiation and quasars.
The second half of the book is what I found really interesting, however. Van Flandern develops an "Exploding Planet" hypothesis, in which he amasses several different kinds of evidence which indicate that various solar system-wide phenomena are the result of the explosion of a planet which used to exist between present-day Mars and Jupiter. This evidence includes the asymmetrical cratering and carbonaceous covering of many solar system bodies, the chemical compositions and other properties of both asteroids and moons throughout the solar system, the red spot on Jupiter (which he suggests may have come about due to the entry of a very large object into its atmosphere), the rings of Saturn, and orbital and tilt irregularities of various solar system bodies. He also suggests that Mercury may have been an original companion of Venus, that Mars may have been an original satellite of the exploded planet, and that Pluto and Charon may have originally been two of Neptune's moons that were dislodged from their orbits via an interaction with a larger, more distant Planet X (a large, unidentified planet on the outer edge of the solar system which would explain irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune).
There are two points in particular which I think deserve special attention:
(1) Van Flandern deals quite a bit with the idea that comets and asteroids can have their own satellites. In particular, he discusses how comets can travel as groups in tandem with each other, provided (in my understanding) that there is at least one principle body that is larger than the rest and to which the smaller bodies are gravitationally bound. This means that in the case of a comet swarm, one would expect that there is a single large body (or possibly two) surrounded by an unidentified number of smaller bodies, and that these travel as a group. As in the case of Pluto and Charon, which were originally mistaken for a single body, at long range a cluster like this would appear to be a single body, and would only be identifiable as a comet swarm at relatively close range. Given what we've been learning about the Electric Universe model, it seems that it might be a good idea to try to figure out exactly how large the principle body of an incoming comet swarm might be, since even if it were only the smaller members of the swarm that impacted during a close passage, the size of the main body would still have significant action-at-a-distance effects.
(2) Van Flandern also argues against a general Oort cloud origin for most solar system-based comets, suggesting instead that it is much more likely that these originate from the exploding planet. His hypothesis is that the explosion was the result of a matter-antimatter reaction, and that it was so violent that it would have sent debris of various sizes hurling into the outer solar system, partly feeding the Kuiper belt, and leaving some debris in orbit between Mars and Jupiter. In particular, he devotes several pages of evidence toward his argument that the orbits of most cometary bodies local to the solar system can be traced back to an origin within the inner solar system, and not outside of it. This brings to mind this particular session excerpt:
Given McCanney's model -- that the only difference between comets and rocky planets is essentially how much mass they have accreted over time -- this makes me wonder if Clube and Napier's giant comet may have actually been Kantek. It's been awhile since I read their books, and I don't own copies so I can't readily reference them, but it seems like one logical possibility. If that were the case -- that the comet swarm that has been periodically interacting with Earth, wreaking havoc and ending entire civilizations, actually originated from the explosion of Kantek -- talk about karmic payback! This isn't to say that some comets may not originate in the Oort cloud -- Van Flandern doesn't consider the possibility of a twin sun -- but it does suggest that cometary swarms may have more than one origin, and that only some -- and perhaps a minority -- may originate from Oort cloud perturbations.
The other thing I find really interesting about this theory is this:
So if a body like comet Elenin were originally a fragment of Kantek, then it may stand to reason that any viral organisms which it carried may have originated on Kantek as well. If that were the case, then it would imply that an original Kantekkian population may have already been exposed and developed an immunity that could be passed down genetically, not unlike the CCR5 mutation that supposedly protects against the Black Death and HIV. Taking that as a hypothesis, whatever this mutation-based immunity is, it could also have something to do with smoking.
Product description from Amazon:
This book covers a lot of ground, and could probably be considered Van Flandern's magnum opus. It's divided roughly into two parts: the first describes Van Flandern's "Meta Model" which tackles concepts like gravity, quantum theory, the nature of light, and dark matter. The second develops his "Exploding Planet" hypothesis.
I don't have a lot to say about the first part, partly because I don't have enough background to evaluate it. He develops a theory of gravity based on what he calls "C-gravitons", which was critiqued in part in this thread. With a tip of the hat to the participants on The Two-Slit Experiment thread, he also argues that "electrons, light, and other quantum objects propagate as pure waves; but they may cause the emission of a short-lived particle upon encountering matter" in his discussion of the Bell Inequality. He also rightly critiques the Big Bang theory, including a discussion on things like cosmic microwave radiation and quasars.
The second half of the book is what I found really interesting, however. Van Flandern develops an "Exploding Planet" hypothesis, in which he amasses several different kinds of evidence which indicate that various solar system-wide phenomena are the result of the explosion of a planet which used to exist between present-day Mars and Jupiter. This evidence includes the asymmetrical cratering and carbonaceous covering of many solar system bodies, the chemical compositions and other properties of both asteroids and moons throughout the solar system, the red spot on Jupiter (which he suggests may have come about due to the entry of a very large object into its atmosphere), the rings of Saturn, and orbital and tilt irregularities of various solar system bodies. He also suggests that Mercury may have been an original companion of Venus, that Mars may have been an original satellite of the exploded planet, and that Pluto and Charon may have originally been two of Neptune's moons that were dislodged from their orbits via an interaction with a larger, more distant Planet X (a large, unidentified planet on the outer edge of the solar system which would explain irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune).
There are two points in particular which I think deserve special attention:
(1) Van Flandern deals quite a bit with the idea that comets and asteroids can have their own satellites. In particular, he discusses how comets can travel as groups in tandem with each other, provided (in my understanding) that there is at least one principle body that is larger than the rest and to which the smaller bodies are gravitationally bound. This means that in the case of a comet swarm, one would expect that there is a single large body (or possibly two) surrounded by an unidentified number of smaller bodies, and that these travel as a group. As in the case of Pluto and Charon, which were originally mistaken for a single body, at long range a cluster like this would appear to be a single body, and would only be identifiable as a comet swarm at relatively close range. Given what we've been learning about the Electric Universe model, it seems that it might be a good idea to try to figure out exactly how large the principle body of an incoming comet swarm might be, since even if it were only the smaller members of the swarm that impacted during a close passage, the size of the main body would still have significant action-at-a-distance effects.
(2) Van Flandern also argues against a general Oort cloud origin for most solar system-based comets, suggesting instead that it is much more likely that these originate from the exploding planet. His hypothesis is that the explosion was the result of a matter-antimatter reaction, and that it was so violent that it would have sent debris of various sizes hurling into the outer solar system, partly feeding the Kuiper belt, and leaving some debris in orbit between Mars and Jupiter. In particular, he devotes several pages of evidence toward his argument that the orbits of most cometary bodies local to the solar system can be traced back to an origin within the inner solar system, and not outside of it. This brings to mind this particular session excerpt:
December 12 said:
Given McCanney's model -- that the only difference between comets and rocky planets is essentially how much mass they have accreted over time -- this makes me wonder if Clube and Napier's giant comet may have actually been Kantek. It's been awhile since I read their books, and I don't own copies so I can't readily reference them, but it seems like one logical possibility. If that were the case -- that the comet swarm that has been periodically interacting with Earth, wreaking havoc and ending entire civilizations, actually originated from the explosion of Kantek -- talk about karmic payback! This isn't to say that some comets may not originate in the Oort cloud -- Van Flandern doesn't consider the possibility of a twin sun -- but it does suggest that cometary swarms may have more than one origin, and that only some -- and perhaps a minority -- may originate from Oort cloud perturbations.
The other thing I find really interesting about this theory is this:
February 13 said:
So if a body like comet Elenin were originally a fragment of Kantek, then it may stand to reason that any viral organisms which it carried may have originated on Kantek as well. If that were the case, then it would imply that an original Kantekkian population may have already been exposed and developed an immunity that could be passed down genetically, not unlike the CCR5 mutation that supposedly protects against the Black Death and HIV. Taking that as a hypothesis, whatever this mutation-based immunity is, it could also have something to do with smoking.
