Do a spiral galaxy and a hurricane share a similar formation mechanism?

[lawcat]

Yes they do. They have centrifugal force in common. In other words, they rotate. Good observation.

[CraigD]

Today I saw two totally unrelated pictures: one is a spiral galaxy and the other is a hurricane; they are so similar (see the attached pictures below)which make me think that they should share (to some extent) similar mechanism of formation.

Hey Peter

Not silly at all. Processes in nature do not look identical coincidentally. They must be related, even if popular scientific theory doesn't know why yet (something they HATE admitting).

 

Yes they do. They have centrifugal force in common. In other words, they rotate. Good observation.

A very important – an undisputed – collection of data about spiral galaxies is that the motion of most of the individual stars in a galaxy don’t follow its visible spiral, but rather fairly eccentric elliptical paths around its center of mass.

 

Thus, despite the similar appearance when imaged from a distance of a spiral galaxy and a hurricane, the visible elements of them – stars in the case of the galaxy, clouds in the hurricane – move very differently. (see the wikipedia article density wave theory for more information) The perception that stars in a spiral galaxy move like clouds in a hurricane is due to an perceptual illusion somewhat similar to those that causes us to perceive faces in clouds.

 

Contrary to Arnie’s claim some processes in nature do look identical coincidentally. Because images of two different objects look similar via our human sensory-perceptual systems doesn’t mean they must be related.

 

The gravitational model has trouble accounting for galaxy formation and structure.

Nobel Laureate Hannes Alfven (the guy who explained the aurora borealis phenomenon) has demonstrated in the lab that plasma physics and electromagnetism account for galaxy formation and structure.

It’s certainly true that the formation of arrangement of galaxies, stars within galaxies, and even planets around stars, are difficult to explain with even the best present-day theory and modeling techniques. These techniques have, however, been at least moderately successful, and do include plasma physics an electromagnetism. Troublingly, they are also forced to include large undetected masses, known as dark matter. Physically explaining the presence or lack of dark matter remains one of the great challenges of present-day cosmology.

 

In the 1960 and 70s, before the availability of computers capable of the kind of high-resolution modeling vital in present-day astrophysics, Alfven and others’ developed of a family of alternative theories, usually called plasma cosmologies in which the role of plasma and electromagnetic effects are hypothesized to be significant at much greater scale than accepted by the scientific mainstream (in conventional theory and models, these effects are significant on the scale of forming star-planet systems). These theories have not, however, been supported by modeling using computers available in the 1980s through today, so by about 1990, were largely discredited and discarded.

 

The continued popularity of plasma cosmology among a small number of researchers, most of them specialists in plasma physics on small (less than 0.1 m) scales, and amateur scientist “independent researchers” (some of whom are better known than professional scientists proponents of plasma cosmology, because while amateur scientists, they are proficient professional book writers and bloggers), appears to me to be mostly because it is one of the few reasonable and easily understandable models that support stead state cosmology. Stead state cosmologies, IMHO, remain popular because they avoid the philosophical difficulties of creation ex nihilo that arise from the dominant Big Bang cosmological model.

 

So plasma cosmology is better understood, I think, as a sub-theory of steady state cosmology, not a stand-alone alternative to the convention, gravity-dominated models of the structure and formation of galaxies and their arrangement in the universe.

 

The idea [of plasma cosmology] isn't popular. I'm sure you know the great inertia of the scientific world. It takes tremendous force to divert their thinking from popular theory. But the images speak for themselves.

The present day scientific disfavor of steady state theories is, I think, evidence that the scientific consensus, while it may have “great inertia”, does eventually change. The return to dominance of a steady state theory, including or not a plasma cosmology, would be a return to a very old, long dominant scientific consensus, which I believe was motivated more by intuitive assumption than scientific evidence.

 

But the images speak for themselves.

This idea – that intuitive impression formed by simply looking at pictures – is IMHO a very bad and pervasive one, responsible for much of the worst pseudoscience existent.

 

Human visual perception excels at recognizing similarities between objects. While critical to the success of our species, this predisposes us to experiencing perceptual illusions, such as concluding that a galaxy is like a hurricane. Methodically studying an understanding science is, in my experience, the best way to overcome such false perceptions.

[coldcreation]

 

This idea – that intuitive impression formed by simply looking at pictures – is IMHO a very bad and pervasive one, responsible for much of the worst pseudoscience existent.

 

Human visual perception excels at recognizing similarities between objects. While critical to the success of our species, this predisposes us to experiencing perceptual illusions, such as concluding that a galaxy is like a hurricane.

 

This is kind of similar too Why Japan's Tsunami Triggered an Enormous Whirlpool

 

"Whirlpools have a big impact on the human imagination," Ludwin said...

 

cc

[LaurieAG]

Hi CC,

 

"Whirlpools have a big impact on the human imagination," Ludwin said...

 

And black holes, whether they be natural or financial share similar characteristics to the formation of hurricanes and maelstroms.

 

I think it was Edgar Allan Poe who wrote a short story called the Maelstrom. He gave a good shot at explaining the geographic setup and the tidal changes that caused the maelstrom to form and described the things being drawn down and ground to a pulp by the boulders before being spat out by the change in tide. I'm not sure if it was this story or another that told of 2 men going down into a maelstrom, the one who grabbed the barrel was lighter and didn't get sucked in before the tide change while the other who stayed with the ship went down quicker and was pulped.

 

IMHO the worst psuedoscience these days is using spacetime to model a universe because spacetime is what happens in discrete 3D space+time locations, duh.

[granpa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_wave_theory

[coldcreation]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_wave_theory

 

Here's a nice simulation.

 

Notice how the trajectory of stars predicted by density wave theory move in and out of the spiral arms as they orbit the galaxy, allowing the existence of stable spiral arms.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD9OV1Zrs4I&NR=1

 

 

 

cc

[LaurieAG]

Hi CC,

 

Notice how the trajectory of stars predicted by density wave theory move in and out of the spiral arms as they orbit the galaxy, allowing the existence of stable spiral arms.[/center]

 

The only problem with all these theories is that I have never seen an astronomical observation that only showed half of a spiral galaxy.

 

To me that indicates spiral galaxies can only be 'seen' when the observers field of view is wider than the 'galaxy' itself.

[coldcreation]

Hi LaurieG,

 

Hi CC,

 

And black holes, whether they be natural or financial share similar characteristics to the formation of hurricanes and maelstroms.

 

I would say "financial" :unsure: . Indeed black holes sell allot of books.

 

 

I think it was Edgar Allan Poe who wrote a short story called the Maelstrom. He gave a good shot at explaining the geographic setup and the tidal changes that caused the maelstrom to form and described the things being drawn down and ground to a pulp by the boulders before being spat out by the change in tide. I'm not sure if it was this story or another that told of 2 men going down into a maelstrom, the one who grabbed the barrel was lighter and didn't get sucked in before the tide change while the other who stayed with the ship went down quicker and was pulped.

 

Edgar Allan Poe, in “Heureka” (1848) described creation as an “instantaneous flash.”

 

The writings of Poe can be found in several cosmology textbooks (Heurica!)

 

 

IMHO the worst psuedoscience these days is using spacetime to model a universe because spacetime is what happens in discrete 3D space+time locations, duh.

 

Here I would have to disagree with you. :mellow:

 

 

 

cc

[Time_Travel]

No matter what some people say that Golden Ratio(1.618 or 0.618) occurring as a pure coincidence and compare them to common straight lines and circles etc etc, Golden ratio is here to stay in an extraordinary fashion. Even Human Body displays Golden Ratio characteristics. Even the mass psychology of people i.e the stock markets displays golden ratio turning points.

 

As for why the Hurricane and Galaxy look similar is because of the very Fractal nature of Nature itself. Whatever happens at the smallest scale will repeat at the largest scale and vice versa because of fractal nature.

[dduckwessel]

 

Contrary to Arnie’s claim some processes in nature do look identical coincidentally. Because images of two different objects look similar via our human sensory-perceptual systems doesn’t mean they must be related.

 

Then there's human fingerprints and the crown of hair on our heads (you can only see the spiral shape when the hair is really short). Obviously blood is flowing in a circular motion underneath the scalp to cause the hair to grown in that pattern! My son has a galaxy shape on his chest where the hair grows in that pattern, again obviously the blood is flowing in a circular motion underneath.

 

Therefore, wherever we see this same galaxy shape, we can deduce there's some force moving in a circular motion underneath to cause that formation!

[Turtle]

Then there's human fingerprints and the crown of hair on our heads (you can only see the spiral shape when the hair is really short). Obviously blood is flowing in a circular motion underneath the scalp to cause the hair to grown in that pattern! My son has a galaxy shape on his chest where the hair grows in that pattern, again obviously the blood is flowing in a circular motion underneath.

 

Therefore, wherever we see this same galaxy shape, we can deduce there's some force moving in a circular motion underneath to cause that formation!

 

poppycock.

[CraigD]

No matter what some people say that Golden Ratio(1.618 or 0.618) occurring as a pure coincidence and compare them to common straight lines and circles etc etc,

Time_Travel is referring, I think, to this old post of Pyro’s, in which he notes that, just as all object and phenomena that produce straight lines or circles don’t necessarily “share a similar formation mechanism”, neither do all phenomena that produce logarithmic spirals.

 

Thus, as I think we did long ago in this thread, its title question “Do a spiral galaxy and a hurricane share a similar formation mechanism?” is answered simply “no”. Galaxies form primarily due to effect of gravity on many stars in the near vacuum of space. Hurricanes form primarily due to effect of air pressure in the atmosphere. Both can result in roughly logarithmic spiral shapes forming, but each is formed by very different mechanisms.

 

It’s important to note that not all logarithmic spirals are golden spirals. For example, our Milky Way galaxy is shaped roughly like a pair of logarithmic spiral with pitch about 12°. The golden spiral has a pitch of about 17.03239°. Thus, the spiral shape of our galaxy doesn’t exhibit the golden ratio. Some galaxy might, but this would be coincidence.

 

The wikipedia article logarithmic spiral covers the basic terms and concepts of and some elaboration on logarithmic spirals.

 

Golden ratio is here to stay in an extraordinary fashion.

I agree the golden ratio is “here to stay”. There are no other answers on the Euclidean plane to the question “what is the length of the side of a rectangle that when placed beside a square with sides length 1 form a similar rectangle” than 1 and [imath]\frac{2}{1+\sqrt{5}}[/imath], nor solutions to the equation [imath]x=\frac1{1+x}[/imath] other than [imath]x=\frac{1+\sqrt5}{2}[/imath] and [imath]x=\frac{1-\sqrt5}{2}[/imath]. These solutions are as permanent as the mathematical formalism that produce them, which, unless you takes SF stories like Greg Egan’s Luminous and Dark Integers seriously (they’re really good stories, hard not to take at least somewhat seriously :)), are pretty permanent.

 

Whether the name “the golden ratio” is here to stay is questionable. Prior to friar/mathematician Luca Pacioli naming it “the divine ratio” ca 1500, it was usually called “the extreme and mean ratio”. Terming the ratio “golden” appears to been coined in the mid 1800s. What people will call it and think of it in the future is anyones guess.

 

Even Human Body displays Golden Ratio characteristics.

This is a common misconception. Although the ration of, say, the height of your belly button vs. the height of the top of your head may be near 0.618 for some people, it’s for most people, on average, or even for famous illustrations such as Davinci’s “Vitruvian Man” (which is actually drawn based on a collection of rational, rather than the golden ratio’s irrational, ratios described by 1st century BC Roman architect Vitruvius), for which the belly-button:height ratio is closer to 0.60 than 0.618.

 

Even the mass psychology of people i.e the stock markets displays golden ratio turning points.

Can you cite some references for these claims, TT :QuestionM I’ve a suspicion they’re present day myths, so would like to get at their sources to see if my suspicions are justified.

 

Some pretty good debunkings of some common and less common golden ration myths can be read at its wikipedia article, or Keith Devlin 2004 Good stories, pity they’re not true

 

Moderation note: replies to this section of this post have been moved to the thread Predicting the stock market using the golden ratio, because they are about a different subject the shape and formation of galaxies and hurricanes

 

As for why the Hurricane and Galaxy look similar is because of the very Fractal nature of Nature itself. Whatever happens at the smallest scale will repeat at the largest scale and vice versa because of fractal nature.

I think this idea – that some sort of abstract principle of proportions causes physical phenomena to occur as they do, rather than physical causes – is very wrong, and badly pervasive in human culture at large.

 

Despite the occasional use of the phrase “fractal nature of nature” by scientists (often conscious or unconscious wordplay, I think, on the title if Mandelbrot’s famous The Fractal Geometry of Nature, which introduced the term), usually in biological disciplines, self-similarity on many scales – “fracticality”, as some have coined the term – is empirical, or emergent, not causative. (Mathematically, the concept is often usually less about self-similarity than undifferentiabily – entomologically, the term means essentially “broken function”, but in this thread’s mostly intuitive context, I think it refers almost entirely to self-similarity)

 

Self similarity is useful for describing many things, sometimes very so, as it allows the approximation of large amounts of seemingly disorderly data to be generated from small amounts of it, but it is not a ubiquitous physical law. Many structures and relationships are fairly unique to the scale on which they occur, such as galaxies and atmospheric cyclones, as we’ve previously discussed, and on the smallest scales, quantum mechanical laws, which have hardly any analogies at larger scales.

 

This dramatic lack of similarity between the physical laws of the very small and the not-very small is what give rise to the IMHO apt phrase “quantum weirdness” – the smallest scale phenomena follow laws so weird its difficult to impossible to intuitively relate them to everyday experience – while the lack of similarity between phenomena at human scales to those at astronomic scales gave rise to Eddington’s famous quote “not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine”.

Edited April 20, 2011 by CraigD
Added moderation note

[dduckwessel]

poppycock.

 

You can't just say poppycock, you have to explain why you think it's poppycock.

 

And what's poppycock specifically? Is it that humans don't have spiral fingerprints? Or is it that the blood does not flow in a circular pattern underneath the skin to make the crown of hair grow into a spiral shape?

 

Or you don't believe my son's chest hair has a galaxy shape just above his heart? (I guess I have to take a picture).

[granpa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowlick

[dduckwessel]

 

Sections of many people’s dermal ridges show vague spiral patterns, conventionally called whorls, but most dermal ridges follow patterns better described as cores, forks, deltas, etc. I’ve never seen a whole finger dominated by a single whorl, however, so think they’re rare, perhaps even unknown.

 

Some of mine and my 14 year old's are spiral shaped! Of course I know that everyone is different but again I think it's blood flow that determines shape of fingerprints, crown of hair, etc.

 

Even whorls are rarely even approximately logarithmic spirals, because dermal ridges intersect radii from selected centers at many very different angles. By definition, this angle of intersection is constant in a logarithmic spiral. In nearly every case I’ve looked at, whorls aren’t mathematically spirals at all, because their ridge lines can be described as polar functions at all, because they fork and double back a lot, leaving domains where no or more than one radius is defined for a given angle.

 

 

Yeah but what causes these shapes to happen? And in the case of hair and fingerprints why couldn't it be blood flow? What other explanation would there be?

 

 

I don’t doubt it – but would still like to see a picture, as it sounds like a cool and unusual feature. :) :thumbs_up

 

I have it on my phone and I've been trying for a half hour to upload (USB cord) to my computer with no luck. It shouldn't be complicated but it is. My son lives in the city so I can't get a picture real soon with my digital camera but as soon as I do...

 

However, just because a feature resembles a shape like a hurricane or galaxy doesn’t mean that it’s caused by similar phenomena.

 

cause and effect - what causes those shapes to be 'everywhere' in nature? There must be a common denominator?

 

 

Recognizing the bias that’s “hardwired” into us by our perceptual neuro-psyches, and using appropriate objective mathematical analysis to avoid it, is an important skill.

 

Does that mean I can't trust what I see or are you referring to an optical illusion? Even still, with a little bit of focus we can differentiate between what's real and what's illusionary!

[Turtle]

You can't just say poppycock, you have to explain why you think it's poppycock.

 

 

i'll say whatever i goddamn well please. you & your ilk coming here with your religious spiritual crap is no different than me going into a church and taking a **** on the pulpit. :evil: before you say science is just my belief & you get your panties in a bunch on the way out, think of me as jesus & you're a money changer.

 

what the hell is wrong with you people!!!??? :rant:

[JMJones0424]

Some of mine and my 14 year old's are spiral shaped!

 

I would like you to examine your 14 year-old's and your fingerprints again and compare the structure to that of a spiral galaxy. I think you will find that whorl shaped fingerprints are only trivially similar to a spiral galaxy.

 

Yeah but what causes these shapes to happen? And in the case of hair and fingerprints why couldn't it be blood flow? What other explanation would there be?

 

I could claim to think that when a unicorn sneaks into a baby's bedroom and licks a child's head 12 times in the same place, a swirl forms. And I could also claim that whorled fingerprints are the mark of the anti-christ. Both of these claims are unsupported by evidence, and as this is a science forum, you are expected to support claims with evidence. Your limited imagination is not a valid support of your claim.

 

cause and effect - what causes those shapes to be 'everywhere' in nature? There must be a common denominator?

Why must there be? I think it would be more accurate to say that there could be. However, you have failed to show cause and effect. *** hoc ergo propter hoc is a common logical fallacy, but that doesn't excuse your continued assertion that because two structures are superficially similar, they are caused by the same phenomenon.

 

Does that mean I can't trust what I see or are you referring to an optical illusion? Even still, with a little bit of focus we can differentiate between what's real and what's illusionary!

 

It means EXACTLY that you can not always trust what you see. A whole new thread could easily be filled will youtube videos of optical illusions that illustrate the brain's ability to "jump to conclusions" when processing visual data. Eye witness testimony has repeatedly been shown to be very unreliable, because the brain frequently interprets what we see in a way that agrees with what we expect to see. One particular example that I find fascinating, is that people with schizophrenia tend to not be fooled by the hollow mask illusion, which seems to suggest that they are suffering from an inability to "sort" through stimuli and "jump to conclusions". While this may seem to be beneficial, the sheer overload of sensory data severely disrupts the ability of the sufferer to function.