Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: RTCPhysics on 25/09/2016 21:01:22
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Electrostatics is traditionally defined as the study of the behaviour of ‘charged particles’ that have been separated from each other. As the neutron and the neutrino do not have charge, it is primarily the study of electron and proton separation, although positrons and anti-protons can also figure.
The basic concept behind electrostatics is that oppositely charged particles, function together under the influence of an electrostatic field, being attracted or repelled according to an interaction between like with like charges and like with unlike charges.
So what role does kinetic energy have in the study of static electricity?
The link arises during the process of removing an electron from its host atom. It is a process which imparts kinetic energy to the extracted electrons in order to remove them from their atomic orbit around the nucleus.
The use of friction between two dissimilar materials, referred to as the ‘triboelectric effect’, provides an example of this input of kinetic energy, but once extracted, the electron does not show itself as having kinetic energy that is associated with the movement of the electron through space, but through an increase in the electron’s ‘static vibrational energy’.
In electrostatic experiments conducted in the lab, the electrons, once freed from their atom, can be physically transferred and stored upon a ‘non-conducting’ surface or alternatively, upon an insulated ‘conducting’ surface. The depositing of the electrons onto this storage medium brings the energised vibrating electrons into close contact with each other, but it is their individual vibrations, rather than their charge, which initially keeps them apart.
But as the numbers of electrons continue to stack up on the finite surface area of the storage medium, they begin to cramp each other’s space. The electrons cope with this by synchronising their vibrations to make the best use of the horizontal space available to them and storing newly arrived electrons on top of each other, when the surface area is fully utilised.
The deeper and denser that the layers of electrons become, the greater is their synchronised vibrational energy, until a critical energy level is reached, at which the 'vibrations' of the energised electrons are able to interact with the electrons of the atoms in the surrounding non-conducting medium.
This vibrational contact affects the electron pairings located in each atom’s outer orbit, causing the electron pair to be split apart and dispatching one of the electron pair into a higher energy state. Because both electrons remain as part of the atom, the atom is not ionised, but the division creates a free electron in the atom’s new outer orbit and this starts the temporary conversion of the non-conducting medium into a conducting one.
Repetitive quantum strikes of kinetic energy passing from the stored electrons into the non-conducting medium continues to separate paired electrons, with the process moving from molecule to molecule away from the source, albeit in the manner of a ‘random walk’.
Each ‘pair splitting’ event absorbs an input of vibrational energy from the electron store. But the distance that it travels through the non-conducting medium can fizzle out, if the driving force from the transmitted electron vibrations is depleted or siphoned off in another direction. This same cessation of ‘pair splitting’, also happens when the path of a ‘pair splitting’ process is impeded by an object, such as an earthed terminal or an object upon the earth itself and this causes the path to deliver its remaining vibrational energy onto that blocking object.
However, the ending of a 'pair splitting path' initiates a reversal of the process, whereby the energised outer electron of each ‘split pair’ is now able to fall back into its original orbital level, emitting a flash of visible light. This enables the split pair to re-join again and returns the medium back into its non-conducting state.
The traditional concept of the electron as having an associated ‘charge’ and being mediated by an ‘electrostatic field’, is not a requirement of this electrostatic ‘lightning strike’ phenomenon.
The concept of ‘static vibrational energy’ is also relevant in the field of electrodynamics, where traditionally the creation of an electric current in a conducting circuit is viewed as the result of the physical movement of charged electrons along a conducting wire under the influence of an electrostatic field.
The transport of an electric current around a conducting circuit by the means of ‘vibrating electrons’, is driven by the input of quantum units of kinetic energy, that are vibrated into the circuit by a generating source, whether it is a battery, a dynamo, mechanical friction or the sun’s radiant energy.
Each quantum input of energy is transmitted around the circuit using the conducting 'free electrons' as its vehicle. These free electrons are located in the outer orbit of every atom of the conducting circuit and together they provide a direct conduit through the lattice structure of the conducting wire.
Once the vibration from the input kinetic energy has been transmitted from one electron to the next in a sequential manner, the electrons in the circuit each return to their original state, enabling them to transmit the next quantum unit of vibrational kinetic energy. The voltage at any point upon the conducting circuit, is just a measurement of the kinetic energy that is being transported past that point.
These two phenomena from the fields of electrostatics and electrodynamics, which are in essence the same process of transmitting kinetic energy through a medium, are not underpinned by the existence of a ‘universal electric force field’ that mediates the interaction between charged particles, but are explained more simply by the ‘generation’, ‘storage’ and ‘transfer’ of kinetic energy.
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Hi RTC. Sorry, I had to remove some junk that had clogged up your thread, and now we are back to square 1.
I think that in the strictest sense, "electrostatics" only concerns "non-moving" charges (capacitors, static fields and such), and "electrodynamics" concerns moving and changing charges, fields etc.
When thinking about these things on a quantum level, "static" or "stationary" are tricky (also on a relativistic level).
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Hi RTC. Sorry, I had to remove some junk that had clogged up your thread, and now we are back to square 1.
I think that in the strictest sense, "electrostatics" only concerns "non-moving" charges (capacitors, static fields and such), and "electrodynamics" concerns moving and changing charges, fields etc.
When thinking about these things on a quantum level, "static" or "stationary" are tricky (also on a relativistic level).
Hi, ChiralSPO,
I appreciated that I was treading upon sticky ground by integrating the fields of Electrostatics and Electrodynamics, but nature has a habit of spanning across our categorisations.
Thanks for your comments and sorting out my thread. I have yet to fully master the facilities of the forum.