Does RST or RS2 have an explanation for what astronomers call "magnetic reconnection"?
I was triggered by this article and the great animation that goes with it:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auror ... power.html
To me "crossing magnetic field lines" that "reconnect" look unphysical, at least to my Maxwell trained mind.
The wikipedia article at least partially agrees with me: "A current sheet (as shown) may be present but is not required for reconnection to occur. This process is not well understood: once started, it proceeds many orders of magnitude faster than predicted by calculation from first principles."
It is here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_reconnection
"As a limiting case, refrigerator magnets moved near one another in Earth's atmosphere cause nearly continuous magnetic reconnection, although no electrical current flows through the air .
Could it be explained by a "magnetic charge" redistribution?
Magnetic reconnection
Reconnection in space, continuous in time
Magnetic force, like all force, is a measure of how coordinate time changes space--we only see the net effect as force, not the temporal geometry behind it. So it is an incomplete view.
Space is discrete, so it won't change until a sufficient "force" (net temporal displacement) pushes the connection between locations in space past the unit level. (Think of the unit level like lines on a contour map.) Once you exceed that unit level, then space will reconfigure itself to the least energy level, which is probably what is causing the magnetic reconfiguration. In an aggregate like an aurora, because of the thermal and electric ionization balancing the atoms motions out, the atoms would tend to reach that unit change at the same time, causing a cascade effect and sudden change.
Magnetic charge may only be part of the redistribution; electric and thermal redistribution probably also occur.
Space is discrete, so it won't change until a sufficient "force" (net temporal displacement) pushes the connection between locations in space past the unit level. (Think of the unit level like lines on a contour map.) Once you exceed that unit level, then space will reconfigure itself to the least energy level, which is probably what is causing the magnetic reconfiguration. In an aggregate like an aurora, because of the thermal and electric ionization balancing the atoms motions out, the atoms would tend to reach that unit change at the same time, causing a cascade effect and sudden change.
Magnetic charge may only be part of the redistribution; electric and thermal redistribution probably also occur.
Every dogma has its day...