Creation and Plasma Physics

Experimental data on the behavior of interacting plasma filaments in the lab have been documented by Anthony L. Peratt in several places, including on the Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) website. The ones we will use here are the 1st Edition of his book, The Plasma Universe, (Springer Verlag, New York, 1992) and his two articles in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science Vol. PS-14, No. 6, December 1986 ‘Evolution of the Plasma Universe: Part 1 (pp.639-660) and Part II (pp.763-778). Among other things, these articles and the Book show how two or more interacting plasma filaments in the lab can form miniature galaxies whose characteristics on a diminutive scale correspond with all known types of galaxies in the large-scale universe. Figure 1 gives a typical sequence of what happens at the point of interaction of two plasma filaments. We are looking down the long axis of the two filaments with parallel currents which cause the filaments to attract each other. The electro-magnetic interaction between them forms a miniature galaxy in the way Figure 1 illustrates.

Figure 1: The interaction sequence of two plasma filaments that produce a miniature galaxy in the Lab.

In his experiments and simulations, Peratt used time-steps to log the progress of events during the formation of these miniature galaxies. On p.646 of the IEEE Transactions, Peratt defines what he refers to as a “time-step,” T, in miniature galaxy formation as just 0.000104 seconds (1.04 x 10^-4 seconds). A full spiral galaxy was formed at a time ranging from 1750 to 2500 time steps, that is from 0.182 to 0.26 seconds. He then noted that, to up-scale the lab examples to actual astronomical phenomena in real time, the value of T had to be multiplied by a factor of 5.87 x 10¹¹ to give the answer in seconds. This factor was determined by comparing the physical parameters of what he was seeing in the lab with what was happening in space and was detailed on pp. 645 ff. of the IEEE article.

From the plasma experiments, it was found that the miniature equivalent of quasars are formed in the cores of the miniature galaxies at a time of near T = 300 (IEEE, p.767). As the interaction went on, the complete cores of the miniature galaxies had fully formed (along with all their ‘old’ or Population II stars), by a step of T = 600. The miniature galaxy spiral arms then started developing and became fully formed (along with their ‘young’ or Population I stars) by a step of T = 1750 to 2500 (see Peratt’s Book, p.120 etc). In plasma physics, stars form when a plasma filament undergoes a Bennett or Z-pinch and forms a plasma ball. In the lab, these pinch processes only take 40 to 200 nanoseconds to complete (Book, p.117-118). 

The upscaling of these experiments to actual universal conditions resolves a serious time problem that gravitational astronomy has with galaxy and star formation in the early universe. The problem is outlined by James Trefil in his book The Dark Side of the Universe. In Chapter 4 of that book, entitled “Five reasons why galaxies can’t exist,” Trefil points out that, in the early universe, it takes too long to form a galaxy by gravitational collapse -- up to 1000 million years. By the time gravity would have pulled matter together sufficiently, universal expansion would have dispersed matter too widely for this to happen. The plasma approach forms galaxies and stars much more quickly. In space, plasma interactions can be up to 10³⁹ times stronger than gravity, as Peratt has noted on page 17 of his Book. From Peratt’s figures, a full galaxy can form in anything from 30 to 50 million years instead of 1 billion. This solves Trefil’s problem.

There is more to consider. Plasma interactions are electric and magnetic in character. The electromagnetic properties of the vacuum are governed by the strength of the Zero Pont Energy (ZPE).  This means that if the ZPE has changed through time, the electric and magnetic properties of space have also changed through time.  This means that plasma interaction rates would have changed also. Thus, the behavior of the ZPE with time is important.

The ZPE originated with the expansion of the universe, and its strength built up over time as the cosmic expansion continued. Because the ZPE supports all atomic structures and atomic orbit energies across the cosmos, we can look back in time as we look farther out in space and discern the strength of the ZPE and its changes through time. Thus, when the ZPE strength was low, atomic orbit energies were correspondingly lower. This means that light emitted from atoms was also of lower energy, or redder. Indeed, as we look further and further out into space, the redder the light we receive from increasingly distant galaxies. As a result, it can be shown that the curve of this redshift of light against distance is the inverse of the graph of ZPE strength against time.

It has also been demonstrated that electric and magnetic interactions were faster when the ZPE was lower -- in inverse proportion. Therefore, since we can know how the ZPE has behaved from the redshift observations, a correction factor can be applied to plasma processes and other electromagnetic phenomena. This correction factor was separately derived in Cosmology and the Zero Point Energy, pp.199-200. At the time of the inception of the cosmos, the correction factor was about 4.1 x 10⁹. This means plasma processes were approximately four billion times faster in the beginning.

Therefore, by applying the ZPE correction to the formation time for galaxies using plasma processes driven by electro-magnetic interactions, we can establish the following:

Quasars formed at T = 300 becomes: (300 x 5.87 x 10¹¹) / (4.1 x 10⁹) = 42950 seconds = 11.9 hours.

The 300 the number of Peratt’s time-steps to form quasars, as noted above.
The 5.87 x 10¹¹ is Peratt’s upscaling factor from the lab experiments to astronomical objects
4.1 x 10⁹ is the ZPE correction factor

The result of the math, that the first quasars formed in about 11.9 hours, matches perfectly with the Bible’s statement that the first light shone out of the dark about 12 hours after creation, ushering in the first morning. All galaxies had an intensely luminous quasar at their centers. Indeed, the light from the quasar at the center of our galaxy was visible throughout our whole galaxy at that time. Remember, that the lower ZPE also meant that all electromagnetic processes were faster, including the speed of light and atomic clock rates. Thus, the light from the quasar in the center of our galaxy, about 30,000 light years away, only took four seconds to reach earth at the beginning.

The cores of galaxies, made up of the ‘old’ or Population II stars, were formed and shining by plasma processes in the period T = 300 to T = 600. This converts to a time of 12 to 24 hours after the inception of the cosmos. These first stars would have been the ‘morning stars,’ or stars of the first morning of Creation in Job 38:4-7.

Finally, the spiral arms of galaxies, with their ‘young’ Population I stars, like our Sun, were there sometime in the period from T = 1750 to T = 2500.  This converts, by the above process, to 2.9 to 4.1 days. This is in line with the Scriptural account of Genesis 1:14 when our sun began shining. In this way, the ZPE-Plasma model gives an indication of how it may have been possible for a whole universe to form in less than a week of seven 24 hour days.