Why?

<b>[Jim] "As far as I know there is nothing in human writing indicating a planet size object has any way to explode ...</b>

Jim,

How important is it to YOU that there be a recognized mechanism before you will consider a particular concept? (If anyone else wants to answer this question, please do so.)

FYI, most educated explorers feel that this is somewhat-to-very important. It is part of what we are taught at college.

Tom used to think this, also, but later changed his mind. I have always treated such things as indeterminate, pending new data. I will look at them and think about them a little bit, but I keep one eye on my BS detector all the time.

LB

LB, Concepts are always of interest to me-silly or not they are all of some interest-even stuff like BB or GW which are silly to me are none the less interesting--

<b>[Jim] "... TVF had observational data that lead him to use EPH to explain the data.
... I just want to understand why he proposed EPH as the answer that fit those observations ... "</b>

The basic reasons he did this are 1) he was open minded, and 2) he would not throw away an observation simply because it did not fit the Accepted Theory. Over time, as he became familliar with more and more peices of the puzzle that did not fit anywhere, he became less willing to ignore them as a whole. And this led him to wonder if the Accepted Theory might have some flaws. Or some competition, another explanation altogether. The only other serious possibility (planetary break up) was proposed at about the same time as the failed planet idea, but had been passed over by the majority of explorers largely because of the relative popularity of the scientists that supported each idea when they were originally proposed.

So Tom finally asked himself the question "Suppose that a planet between Mars and Jupiter actually had exploded. What sort of evidence would it leave behind?" He then spent several years deducing the consequences. This is a long and tedious chore, because you have to make assumptions about exactly where this planet was, how big it was, how much mass, how energetic the explosion was, etc. and you have to do a lot of calculations, which means that if no one else has built a model, you have to. And you have to try a number of combinations of these things.

After a while he began comparing his predictions with the puzzle peices that did not fit the other theory, and found that there was a pretty good match.

Many years later, as the new outer belt was discovered, he realized that there must have been more than one planet that exploded.

And so on.

The details of the evidence that led him down this path are in his book. If you have specific questions I'll try to answer them.

Regards,
LB

LB, Most of the questions I have are with regard to many intertwined puzzles about stuff that has been kicked around for at least a century or more-not stuff about models though. Data that has been used to construct models are what my questions focus on. For example; redshift is used to construct a long favored model. This causes people to filter data through that model thereby supporting said model while hiding other data that might be useful to learning about things rather than being educated to conform to the current belief system. The 20th century is rich in such methods of education. But, I rant. Anyway, it seems to me near SN events are much more logical places to look than an EPH model. There is no reason to think many nearby SN events have occurred over the past 5 or 10 billion years.

<b>[Jim] "... it seems to me near SN events are much more logical places to look than an EPH model. There is no reason to think many nearby SN events have occurred over the past 5 or 10 billion years."</b>

(Did you mean to say there "is NO reason"? I am assuming you meant to say that there "is reason".)

Supernova remnants found in our galaxy suggest the the average time between such explosions is on the order of 50 years. However, this is an average and our mileage appears to have varied. The last observed supernova in the Milky Way was in 1604.

It was 6 kiloparsecs from here (about 20,000 lightyears), and was visible in broad day for almost a month. Not exactly near by, but with 20 or so every thousand years there should have some much closer.

So yes, near by supernovae are probably at least as common as exploding planets.

===

Have you thought about the differences between the physical evidence that ought to be left by a planetary explosion within the solar system and the physical evidence that ought to be left by a stellar explosion outside the solar system? Even if it were nearby.

LB

The Earth was pelted by millions of bits of stuff from somewhere about 3.8 billion years ago. That could have been stuff from a nearby SN event and there would be no evidence of said event that could have dated back a few billion years from the date when the blast wave past through the solar system which would have been in some other zone of the galaxy at 3.8bya. It had a very big effect on our planet.