Juergens' Electric Sun model?

Em Sex 27 Fev 2004 21:42, Paul D. Fernhout escreveu:
> Anybody know anything about this Electric Sun or related Redshift
> controversy?

I remember vaguely about a friend saying that there was a guy on the Internet
who claimed that the redshift is a collective hallucination of the scientific
establishment. On the other hand, I have never heard about the "Electric Sun"
stuff.

> Could the Sun be powered electrically?

I have not read his arguments (yet), and my reflex reaction so far is to think
that it is an utterly crazy hypothesis.

BTW, that is not the only wacky hypothesis about how the Sun works. There is
another guy who claims that the Sun is an iron ball remant of a red giant,
and is mainly powered by a neutronium core
(http://www.spacedaily.com/news/solarscience-03zl.html). AFAIR, the "graceful
decay" of the red giant would produce planets in nicely circular orbits, gas
planets far away and rock-metal planets closer; and the Sun would be an
exception - he thinks that most stars (which are metal-poor) work using
fusion alone. And I think that this hypothesis of the "Iron Sun" is less
wacky than the "Electric Sun". :-)

> What impact would this have on space settlement?

None, I guess. One could claim that the Sun is powered by a god chained inside
a spherical shell of fire, and the Sun would continue to irradiate energy
nevertheless; and no matter how the Sun works, we know that it works over
geological timescales (i.e., eternity, in Human terms). In short, space
settlements could be powered by the Sun even if the settlers thought of the
Sun as a god-powered lamp...