From: willner@cfa.harvard.edu   
      
   In article ,   
    "Sean Steele"  writes:   
   > We are witnessing in real time the fact that stellar atmospheric dynamics   
   > are much more complex than anyone admits to.   
      
   Who, exactly, have you asked?  MHD is a classic example of a hard   
   subject.   
      
   >  It is fascinating to   
   > note that the so-called "chance occurrences" of two near simultaneous events   
   > we have witnessed are being described as "so low on the probability scale as   
   > to be statistically impossible"   
      
   Who exactly said this, and what is the exact quote?  It sounds to me   
   like a sloppy or misunderstood press release.  Without knowing the   
   exact quote it's impossible to be sure, but I suspect the point may   
   have been that these events are not independent of each other.   
      
   > It is difficult to imagine that it is we, out of all people   
   > in all of history that are actually privy to once-in-a-stellar-lifetime   
   > event.  What is more likely is that we are witnessing common stellar   
   > phenomenon that is so complex that we are unable to understand the   
   > underlying process itself.   
      
   I suspect most scientists would agree with this, at least part way.   
   That is, while there is some understanding of the basic underlying   
   process, (magnetic reconnection), there are many things not   
   understood.   
      
   > It is also of some importance that we are also   
   > probably onlookers to events that describe the true nature of a local star   
   > for which we have little understanding.  In this unsettling event, the   
   > bottom line is that what we may be witnessing is a star of unexpected   
   > complexity with a propensity to outbursts and relative instabilities we had   
   > no prior knowledge of.   
      
   "No prior knowledge" is quite an exaggeration.  There is some   
   statistical base of knowledge, but it goes back only a few decades,   
   at least in terms of modern observations.  Sunspot records go back a   
   few hundred years.   
      
   More fundamentally, the solar interior is much simpler than the   
   surface because there is no convection, and magnetic fields are   
   unimportant.  While there are certainly many question still to be   
   answered, my understanding is that there is quite good agreement   
   between theory and helioseismology results.   
      
   > In the real world of stellar atmospheric dynamics, events occur in   
   > thermonuclear reality, in subatomic subsets and in quantum regions, not   
   > readily decipherable by classical descriptions.   
      
   I don't know what most of this means.  Thermonuclear reactions are   
   unimportant on the surface because the temperature is so low.  (Even   
   at the Sun's center, the average proton sits around for a few billion   
   years without undergoing any thermonuclear reaction.)  Nobody doubts   
   quantum mechanics is important, and I doubt anyone is trying to use   
   classical theory where it doesn't apply.   
      
   > with a careful look at what happened to the neutrino count several weeks ago   
   > from Sudbury and extending to the outbursts itself.  Now there is a data set   
   > I would love to get my hands on!  Just a thought..   
      
   Supposing something odd happened in the core, just how long do you   
   think it would take for the signal to propagate to the surface?  What   
   form would the signal take?  Why is this more credible than random   
   bubbling in the convection zone?   
      
   --   
   Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123     swillner@cfa.harvard.edu   
   Cambridge, MA 02138 USA   
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