5 ms·

The theory of Prof. Aguste Meessen published well before Wu's article in Nature already explains ball lightning as a plasma bubble [1]. It is surprizing that Wu

by chmike 10y ago

The theory of Prof. Aguste Meessen published well before Wu's article in Nature already explains ball lightning as a plasma bubble [1]. It is surprizing that Wu didn't reference this work in its introductory review. In its most simple form the thin layer of the bubble is a plasma made of electrons oscillating radially. Like soap bubbles, a plasma bubble may have multiple ecapsulated bubbles. A plasma ball is a dynamic system at an equilibrum using ions like ozone as energy source. The plasma ball will follow ions gradient. It explains why lightning balls may follow complex path like circling in a room and suddently going through a cheminey or a key hole. He explains why plasma balls can traverse windows which are electrical and chemical reaction insulators. This theory is now ready to be tested experimentally. [1] http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/BL-Theory.pdf http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/BL-Theory.pdf

beevai142 10y ago
Note that Wu's article is in Scientific Reports, not Nature. SR is far lower in the "prestige rank" of physics journals, and it's far easier to get papers accepted there, so omissions are more likely. On the other hand, Meessen's paper appears to be unpublished (or according to google scholar, maybe published in a predatory open access journal) --- and it raises some red flags that the author didn't want to / couldn't get it published via standard channels. Not planning to read it, but critical eye may be warranted.
- drjesusphd 10y ago
  A critical eye is always warranted, but the prestige of a journal has no bearing on the correctness of the claim. This attitude is harmful to science. Perhaps his analysis is incorrect or lacking somehow, but that's not the argument you make.
  - beevai142 10y ago
    Generally speaking, if a paper is published in a bad journal, it often means it was submitted first also to other journals, but rejected by reviewers. Hence, it is more likely there's something wrong with it. Reading papers takes time, so it is useful to be aware beforehand of how likely the time is well spent. How is it in this specific case is then a different question. (Predatory open access is bad --- publishing work on your own website OTOH is fairly neutral.)
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - chmike 10y ago
      I disagree on your logic that discredit articles not published in high ranked peer review journals. First this assume that peer review is unbiased which is wrong. There are subjects that will be rejected because they are simply too controversial and present a risk for the credibility of the journal. This is totally independent on the scientific validity, value and pertinence of the article content. Some articles may be rejected or strongly frowned upon by referee just because the author has also published on controversial topics like UFOs while the submitted article is not addressing a controversial subject. Again this is to protect the credibility of the journal. Finally, the fact that the author is known or not also strongly influence the referee's criticism. An author which is known through conferences and communication exchange is more likely to be trusted on the seriousness and validity of his work. A submission of a much less known author will be examined with circonspection and strong criticism, against just as a protection measure. You don't take in account those bias while what should really matter is the scientific validity of the content. If you don't have the compentence to judge the content, then your red flag raising has nothing to do with science. It's just gossip.
      - chmike 10y ago
        There is another bias in your analysis. You assume that an author of a theory will always submit his article to a peer review journal. You deduce that if he doesn't, it implies that the article was rejected. This is wrong logic. People woes career is research tend in general to focus on one specific research domain and do publish in peer review journals or perish (loose financial support and eventually their job). But this is not the case for everybody and especially not for Prof.Meessen woes job was teaching physics in a university. He had the luxury to be free to chose any research topic he wanted and found interesting (not possible anymore). This explains the diversity of his research topics. Also as a theorist all he needed was a very good chair, paper and pencils. He had no dependencies on budgets, lab space and instruments, or personnel. The assumptions I read in this thread apply to career researchers but can't be used as a tautology. Another wrong assumption is that referee are always perfectly competent, impartial, objective and honest judges. Referee are humans raised in school of thoughts, have opinions and have limit in their domain and depth of competence. Implying that a rejected article MUST be crack-pottery is completely ignoring this and is thus also a bogus logic. If an article is rejected, the scientific validity and pertinence is thus a priori UNKNOWN. What IS determinant to evaluate the scientific validity of an article are the ARGUMENTS of rejection. You don't even consider them. As an example Prof. Meessen submitted an article on his study on the rotating compass. In his article he used as example a testimony involving multiple military ships and I think documented in the project blue book. Based on the theory presented in the book a referee computed the intensity of the EM field that should have been produced by the UFO. The intensity was many Tesla if I remember well. The referee said something along the line that no known material could sustain such EM magnetic field or an EM field of this intensity can't be produced. I'm not fully sure because I heard of it more than 25 years ago. The objective and true reality is that we DON'T KNOW if it's possible or not. The article was thus rejected because of the ASSUMPTION (belief/opinion) of the referee that it was impossible and the editor buying it. Of course Prof.Meessen didn't waste more time to confront with such types of referees and clueless journal editors who can't distinguish good referees from impostors. He than published his work in the Book on the Belgian UFO flap. Red flag you say ? Another wrong assumption of yours is that articles are always rejected because referee reject articles. It may happen also that referee say they can't decide and don't want thus to endorse the publication of the article. In these rare case, met by Prof. Meessen for his space time quantification theory, it is then common practice that the journal editor ask the author to suggest referees. These then act in fact as endorsers. If you have a strong network and are in close contact with well known people working on the same research subject, you can provide them to the editors and these people know if you are a crook or a respectable scientist. But if you worked mainly alone as did Prof.Meessen you are stuck. So in this case the lack, or small number, of publications doesn't prove anything beyond the fact that he doesn't have many publications. Again completely bogus logic. If you are a scientist I would advise you to reconsider your career because your reasoning is deficient and wrong in so many ways. I guess you know where to put your red flag now.
- chmike 10y ago
  This theory was presented at the International Symposium on Ball Lightning in 2010. The proceedings were published in 2012. See my other comment. I agree that it isn't made fully clear in the referenced article. Anyway, I don't see why a red flag would have to be raised if it wasn't screen by peer review. This is a logical fallacy. The scientific value should be judged on its content, not the context. Something is very wrong in your logic.
  - chmike 10y ago
    The reference is given in the pdf article: International Symposium on Ball Lightning (ISBL-10), June 21-27, 2010, Kaliningrad, Russia. Proceedings: Journal of Unconventional Electromagnetics and Plasmas (UEP, India), Vol. 4, 163-179, 2012.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Aside from the points that beevai made, there are substantial differences between the theories here. Wu's theory is not just that ball lightning is a plasma bubble, but that it is a plasma bubble which holds inside of it a very strong standing wave of microwave radiation. It is this radiation which is the main energy driver of the phenomenon and is also the main explanation for how it can pass through objects.
tagrun 10y ago
> The theory of Prof. Aguste Meessen published well before Wu's article Which journal was it published exactly, and what is "well before"? You're linking to a generic homemade PDF file served in his personal site, which answers none of those questions. Unless he's a world renowned top scientist, I personally don't even bother reading such "publications". And I'm sorry but adding "Prof." in front of his name sounds a little... off/insecure to me, assuming that "Prof." isn't actual a part of his name. How are you related to him, exactly? Edit: I'm ready to bet he's a crackpot http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ "Principle of an EM Cancer Detector" "Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun" Also, one of the top google results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave Related: About a month ago, I bumped into another user who's promoting some other crackpot's ramblings (probably himself): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11790818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11790818 Just like this Meessen guy, he had 0 papers in respectable physics journals. It seems such people are becoming more and more attracted to HN.
- privong 10y ago
  > Which journal was it published exactly, and what is "well before"? You're linking to a generic PDF file served in his personal site, which answers none of those questions. I wasn't able to find a journal, but his website (and the pdf) have May 2013 for the dates. The same person appears to have given talk with a similar title at a conference in 2010[0]. But, if it wasn't published in a journal, it's tough to insist that someone else in the community should know about it. He does seem to have a few peer-reviewed publications[1], though they're all from the 1970's. > Edit: I'm ready to bet he's a crackpot http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ > "Principle of an EM Cancer Detector" > "Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun" Yes, the titles seem crackpot-ish, but if you look at the abstracts, they seem a bit more reasonable. I don't know enough about human tissue to comment on the "EM Cancer Detection" paper but recall that MRI's use radio waves and CT scans use X-rays to detect cancers, both thus employ EM waves. So I'm not comfortable discarding it solely on the basis of its title. However, the abstract of the second one you mention seems to be a reasonable study of possible origin of phenomena reported by other people: This extensive study of “miracles of the sun” leads to the conclusion that they can be explained by means of natural physiological processes, while “apparitions” are related to altered states of conscience. [0] http://q-mag.org/abstracts-of-papers-on-ball-lightning-presented-at-ais-2010-atmosphere-ionosphere-safety-conference-in-kaliningrad.html http://q-mag.org/abstracts-of-papers-on-ball-lightning-prese... [1] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#search/fq=%7B!type%3Daqp%20v%3D%24fq_property%7D&fq_property=(property%3Arefereed)&q=author%3A%22%5EMeessen%2C%20a%22&sort=date%20desc%2C%20bibcode%20desc https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#search/fq=%7B!type%3Daqp%20v%...

by chmike 10y ago

beevai142 10y ago

Note that Wu's article is in Scientific Reports, not Nature. SR is far lower in the "prestige rank" of physics journals, and it's far easier to get papers accepted there, so omissions are more likely. On the other hand, Meessen's paper appears to be unpublished (or according to google scholar, maybe published in a predatory open access journal) --- and it raises some red flags that the author didn't want to / couldn't get it published via standard channels. Not planning to read it, but critical eye may be warranted.

drjesusphd 10y ago
A critical eye is always warranted, but the prestige of a journal has no bearing on the correctness of the claim. This attitude is harmful to science. Perhaps his analysis is incorrect or lacking somehow, but that's not the argument you make.
- beevai142 10y ago
  Generally speaking, if a paper is published in a bad journal, it often means it was submitted first also to other journals, but rejected by reviewers. Hence, it is more likely there's something wrong with it. Reading papers takes time, so it is useful to be aware beforehand of how likely the time is well spent. How is it in this specific case is then a different question. (Predatory open access is bad --- publishing work on your own website OTOH is fairly neutral.)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - chmike 10y ago
    I disagree on your logic that discredit articles not published in high ranked peer review journals. First this assume that peer review is unbiased which is wrong. There are subjects that will be rejected because they are simply too controversial and present a risk for the credibility of the journal. This is totally independent on the scientific validity, value and pertinence of the article content. Some articles may be rejected or strongly frowned upon by referee just because the author has also published on controversial topics like UFOs while the submitted article is not addressing a controversial subject. Again this is to protect the credibility of the journal. Finally, the fact that the author is known or not also strongly influence the referee's criticism. An author which is known through conferences and communication exchange is more likely to be trusted on the seriousness and validity of his work. A submission of a much less known author will be examined with circonspection and strong criticism, against just as a protection measure. You don't take in account those bias while what should really matter is the scientific validity of the content. If you don't have the compentence to judge the content, then your red flag raising has nothing to do with science. It's just gossip.
    - chmike 10y ago
      There is another bias in your analysis. You assume that an author of a theory will always submit his article to a peer review journal. You deduce that if he doesn't, it implies that the article was rejected. This is wrong logic. People woes career is research tend in general to focus on one specific research domain and do publish in peer review journals or perish (loose financial support and eventually their job). But this is not the case for everybody and especially not for Prof.Meessen woes job was teaching physics in a university. He had the luxury to be free to chose any research topic he wanted and found interesting (not possible anymore). This explains the diversity of his research topics. Also as a theorist all he needed was a very good chair, paper and pencils. He had no dependencies on budgets, lab space and instruments, or personnel. The assumptions I read in this thread apply to career researchers but can't be used as a tautology. Another wrong assumption is that referee are always perfectly competent, impartial, objective and honest judges. Referee are humans raised in school of thoughts, have opinions and have limit in their domain and depth of competence. Implying that a rejected article MUST be crack-pottery is completely ignoring this and is thus also a bogus logic. If an article is rejected, the scientific validity and pertinence is thus a priori UNKNOWN. What IS determinant to evaluate the scientific validity of an article are the ARGUMENTS of rejection. You don't even consider them. As an example Prof. Meessen submitted an article on his study on the rotating compass. In his article he used as example a testimony involving multiple military ships and I think documented in the project blue book. Based on the theory presented in the book a referee computed the intensity of the EM field that should have been produced by the UFO. The intensity was many Tesla if I remember well. The referee said something along the line that no known material could sustain such EM magnetic field or an EM field of this intensity can't be produced. I'm not fully sure because I heard of it more than 25 years ago. The objective and true reality is that we DON'T KNOW if it's possible or not. The article was thus rejected because of the ASSUMPTION (belief/opinion) of the referee that it was impossible and the editor buying it. Of course Prof.Meessen didn't waste more time to confront with such types of referees and clueless journal editors who can't distinguish good referees from impostors. He than published his work in the Book on the Belgian UFO flap. Red flag you say ? Another wrong assumption of yours is that articles are always rejected because referee reject articles. It may happen also that referee say they can't decide and don't want thus to endorse the publication of the article. In these rare case, met by Prof. Meessen for his space time quantification theory, it is then common practice that the journal editor ask the author to suggest referees. These then act in fact as endorsers. If you have a strong network and are in close contact with well known people working on the same research subject, you can provide them to the editors and these people know if you are a crook or a respectable scientist. But if you worked mainly alone as did Prof.Meessen you are stuck. So in this case the lack, or small number, of publications doesn't prove anything beyond the fact that he doesn't have many publications. Again completely bogus logic. If you are a scientist I would advise you to reconsider your career because your reasoning is deficient and wrong in so many ways. I guess you know where to put your red flag now.
chmike 10y ago
This theory was presented at the International Symposium on Ball Lightning in 2010. The proceedings were published in 2012. See my other comment. I agree that it isn't made fully clear in the referenced article. Anyway, I don't see why a red flag would have to be raised if it wasn't screen by peer review. This is a logical fallacy. The scientific value should be judged on its content, not the context. Something is very wrong in your logic.
- chmike 10y ago
  The reference is given in the pdf article: International Symposium on Ball Lightning (ISBL-10), June 21-27, 2010, Kaliningrad, Russia. Proceedings: Journal of Unconventional Electromagnetics and Plasmas (UEP, India), Vol. 4, 163-179, 2012.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

Aside from the points that beevai made, there are substantial differences between the theories here. Wu's theory is not just that ball lightning is a plasma bubble, but that it is a plasma bubble which holds inside of it a very strong standing wave of microwave radiation. It is this radiation which is the main energy driver of the phenomenon and is also the main explanation for how it can pass through objects.

tagrun 10y ago

> The theory of Prof. Aguste Meessen published well before Wu's article Which journal was it published exactly, and what is "well before"? You're linking to a generic homemade PDF file served in his personal site, which answers none of those questions. Unless he's a world renowned top scientist, I personally don't even bother reading such "publications". And I'm sorry but adding "Prof." in front of his name sounds a little... off/insecure to me, assuming that "Prof." isn't actual a part of his name. How are you related to him, exactly? Edit: I'm ready to bet he's a crackpot http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ "Principle of an EM Cancer Detector" "Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun" Also, one of the top google results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave Related: About a month ago, I bumped into another user who's promoting some other crackpot's ramblings (probably himself): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11790818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11790818 Just like this Meessen guy, he had 0 papers in respectable physics journals. It seems such people are becoming more and more attracted to HN.

privong 10y ago
> Which journal was it published exactly, and what is "well before"? You're linking to a generic PDF file served in his personal site, which answers none of those questions. I wasn't able to find a journal, but his website (and the pdf) have May 2013 for the dates. The same person appears to have given talk with a similar title at a conference in 2010[0]. But, if it wasn't published in a journal, it's tough to insist that someone else in the community should know about it. He does seem to have a few peer-reviewed publications[1], though they're all from the 1970's. > Edit: I'm ready to bet he's a crackpot http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ > "Principle of an EM Cancer Detector" > "Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun" Yes, the titles seem crackpot-ish, but if you look at the abstracts, they seem a bit more reasonable. I don't know enough about human tissue to comment on the "EM Cancer Detection" paper but recall that MRI's use radio waves and CT scans use X-rays to detect cancers, both thus employ EM waves. So I'm not comfortable discarding it solely on the basis of its title. However, the abstract of the second one you mention seems to be a reasonable study of possible origin of phenomena reported by other people: This extensive study of “miracles of the sun” leads to the conclusion that they can be explained by means of natural physiological processes, while “apparitions” are related to altered states of conscience. [0] http://q-mag.org/abstracts-of-papers-on-ball-lightning-presented-at-ais-2010-atmosphere-ionosphere-safety-conference-in-kaliningrad.html http://q-mag.org/abstracts-of-papers-on-ball-lightning-prese... [1] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#search/fq=%7B!type%3Daqp%20v%3D%24fq_property%7D&fq_property=(property%3Arefereed)&q=author%3A%22%5EMeessen%2C%20a%22&sort=date%20desc%2C%20bibcode%20desc https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#search/fq=%7B!type%3Daqp%20v%...