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Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: RTCPhysics on 05/11/2014 17:16:00

Title: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 05/11/2014 17:16:00
If an electron is travelling through space and constantly emitting an electric field in all directions, how does it regenerate its electric charge?
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: alancalverd on 05/11/2014 17:19:09
There is no loss of charge involved in moving an electron.
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: PmbPhy on 05/11/2014 18:29:04
If an electron is travelling through space and constantly emitting an electric field in all directions, how does it regenerate its electric charge?
An electron doesn't "emit" an electric field. It just has one. Think of it like a pin cushion whose pins are clamped into the cushion. As time moves on such a pin cushion doesn't need new pins.
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: RTCPhysics on 08/11/2014 20:45:52
Hi, Alan,
You are correct in saying that magnitude of an electric charge is unaffected by its movement. But my question was to do with the 'conservation of energy', not whether the electron was moving or not.

Hi, PmbPhy,
I liked your analogy, its a great way to get a concept across. But pins can't lose energy like an electric field does.

But your ideas have prompted me to explore electrostatics more closely and I came across the "Law of the Conservation of Charge", which states that for every positive charge that exists, there has to be a negative charge.

It set me thinking and led to the conclusion that a negatively charged particle, such as the electron, can only create an electric field if there is a positively charged particle within its vicinity. This way the energy required to generate an electric field is exchanged between the two without either losing any charge. In the atom, a proton and an electron attract each other by exchanging photons, so that neither particle loses charge.

However, if a positively or negatively charged particle is completely isolated, (static or moving) it is unable to generate an electric field around itself and hence doesn't lose charge, which enables it to obey the "Law of Conservation of Energy", which was the essence of my original question.  It also explains the puzzle as to why all charged particles have exactly the same magnitude of charge, independent of their respective masses.

So any demonstration of the electric field, like the one with castor oil and semolina seeds in a petri dish, must have a positively charged pole and a negatively charged  pole to create the electric field between them.

That's where I'm at. Any more feedback would be welcome.
 
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: alancalverd on 08/11/2014 23:38:02
No energy is required to sustain an electric field. You need energy to separate charges, and as far as we know, the universe as a whole is not charged, so if you separate charges you will always generate equal positive and negative charges.

Not sure about "all charged particles have the same magnitude of charge". Charge is quantised in units of electron (or positron) charge, so the smallest amount of observed* charge will be that of one electron or one proton, but an alpha particle, for instance, has a charge of +2e.

The electric field of an isolated point charge is symmetrically radial, so it can't depend on the proximity of an oppositely charged particle as that would destroy the symmetry.   



*pedantic point, as someone will point out that quarks have fractional charges, but they aren't observed as free particles.
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: evan_au on 09/11/2014 04:36:47
Quote
a negatively charged particle, such as the electron, can only create an electric field if there is a positively charged particle within its vicinity

Even if an electron were separated by an infinite distance from it's proton, both would continue to produce an electric field. Each is an "Electric monopole".

However, we have not yet been able to create a magnetic North pole without a corresponding magnetic South pole in the vicinity. These always seem to come in pairs (magnetic dipoles).

There are some theories that predict the possibility of "Magnetic Monopoles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole)", and there are some ongoing experiments which have attempted to detect them, but so far without success.
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: RTCPhysics on 12/11/2014 21:40:39
Hi, Alan,

"No energy is required to sustain an electric field".

My thoughts:  The lines of force from an electrostatic or magnetic source are called 'flux'. As electrostatic and magnetic sources can vary in their magnitude, the strength of the flux is measured by the flow of energy passing through a unit surface area. So energy must be required to generate and sustain an electric field and this, I believe, can be detected by an electroscope.

"You need energy to separate charges." But presumably not, if they are both positive or negative. Have I understood you?

'Charged particles'. My apologies. What I should have said is that 'All charged particles have a 'multiple' of the unit charge of an electron or positron." The Alpha particle as you rightly pointed out has a 2e+ charge, one for each proton.  If I was being more precise, I should have added the word 'elementary or primordial' to the above definition. Every nucleus in the Periodic Table has one or more charges upon it!

I didn't think your last point regarding the UP and DOWN quarks was pedantic at all. But, I do find this fractional allocation of the unit charge between the UP and the DOWN Quarks, more of a convenience than a fact. They seem chosen to result in a positive charge on the proton and no charge on the neutron. Have you come across any proof of this fractional allocation from experimental results. 

A final question regarding your point on radial symmetry.

If an isolated electron has a symmetrical radial field, does every line of force end up upon a positive charge thereby retaining its symmetry? And presumably every one of these isolated positive charges also has a symmetrical field and its lines of force must end upon negative charges. It tends to imply that the universe is riddle through with a network of electrostatic fields! Can you make sense of this?

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Hi, evan,

The existence of a 'negative electric monopole', such as the electron, must be in doubt if it always has to have a 'positive electric monopole' to connect with. Even if they are an infinite distance apart, by definition, this makes it a dipole, the same as the magnet.

It does raise in my mind the unanswered question as to why the Universe is made up primarily of matter and not anti-matter. In other words, we should be experiencing: 50% electrons/50% positrons and 50% protons and 50% anti-protons. Then we would have universal symmetry of charge. Not sure what we humans would look like though!

John
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: jeffreyH on 12/11/2014 22:29:36
If the fields generated by charge extend to infinity as theory suggests then all negative and all positive fields overlap. If we sum the total contributions of either charge at every point then the value tends towards infinity. Correct me if I am wrong. Thus the need for renormalization where only the differences in the strength of charges are taken into account. if we sum all contributions at a particular point in space what value would this tend towards? Altogether the two fields when summed and subtracted should be zero.
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: PmbPhy on 14/11/2014 02:57:06
Quote from: RTCPhysics
Hi, PmbPhy,
I liked your analogy, its a great way to get a concept across. But pins can't lose energy like an electric field does.
The pin analogy was used to demonstrate that the electric field of an electron doesn't loose energy. For some reason you think of the electric field of a charged particle as emitting energy and there's no reason to think that's true. If you want to learn the nature of a system of charges loosing energy then see:
http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/em/poyntings_theorem.htm

You'll see that a necessary requirement for a field to loose energy is that the field changes. However that's a necessary condition, it's not sufficient. There are other requirements. It's possible for energy to merely be moved from one point in the field to another.

Quote from: RTCPhysics
It set me thinking and led to the conclusion that a negatively charged particle, such as the electron, can only create an electric field if there is a positively charged particle within its vicinity.
That is incorrect. You can have an isolated charge with no other charges around it and its field will have energy in it. See above derivation.

Quote from: RTCPhysics
However, if a positively or negatively charged particle is completely isolated, (static or moving) it is unable to generate an electric field around itself...
That is incorrect. There is an electric field around any isolated charged particle.

The definition of field energy is the energy required to assemble the field from the charges that make up the field.

If you want to follow the derivation more clearly then see:
http://bookzz.org/book/855303/affd97

You can download that book from that link.
Title: Re: The electron's electrostatic field.
Post by: evan_au on 14/11/2014 11:04:10
Quote
It does raise in my mind the unanswered question as to why the Universe is made up primarily of matter and not anti-matter.

You and most particle physicists and most cosmologists!
There are a few theories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_asymmetry) about what could have caused it, but no experimental evidence at this time.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: alancalverd on 16/11/2014 23:29:39
Hi, Alan,

"No energy is required to sustain an electric field".

My thoughts:  The lines of force from an electrostatic or magnetic source are called 'flux'. As electrostatic and magnetic sources can vary in their magnitude, the strength of the flux is measured by the flow of energy passing through a unit surface area. So energy must be required to generate and sustain an electric field and this, I believe, can be detected by an electroscope.

No. If the test area doesn't move, there is no "energy flow". The strength of an electric field is measured by the energy required to move a charge in it, or the static force on a charged body (same thing, different ways of measuring it) . The strength of a magnetic field is measured by the current induced in a moving conductor. The electroscope doesn't measure energy, it measures charge by the force between charged plates, and won't indicate a field.

Quote
"You need energy to separate charges." But presumably not, if they are both positive or negative. Have I understood you?

Try combing the cat with a plastic comb and a metal one. the force required to move the plastic comb is greater because in doing so you are separating positive and negative charges - the principle of the Wimshurst machine and the Van de Graaf generator. That's why your woollen skirt sticks to your nylon stockings (go on! have a bit of fun in the name of science! tranvestism or striptease, depending on your chromosomes.) Conversely if you approach a positively charged pith ball with another positive charge (say the cat's comb) you can watch the force pushing it away, so you would have to do work to bring it back. OK, if you separate two like charges you can extract useful work, but that's just a matter of sign convention. The point is that moving a charge in a field involves energy.

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I didn't think your last point regarding the UP and DOWN quarks was pedantic at all. But, I do find this fractional allocation of the unit charge between the UP and the DOWN Quarks, more of a convenience than a fact. They seem chosen to result in a positive charge on the proton and no charge on the neutron. Have you come across any proof of this fractional allocation from experimental results.

Alas, free quarks are the fairies at the bottom of the nucleon - we have to keep inventing reasons like quantum chromodynamics why we never see them, but how else can you explain a ring of toadstools or the half life of a neutron?   

Quote
If an isolated electron has a symmetrical radial field, does every line of force end up upon a positive charge thereby retaining its symmetry?

The "lines of force" are vectors that we draw to illustrate what is actually a divergent continuum. If you introduce a positive charge you will distort the isotropic field, and we can illustrate that by drawing bananas between the charges instead of radial lines.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: jeffreyH on 17/11/2014 01:30:34
In reality the electric or any other field lines cannot extend to infinity as the universe has a finite age. If all matter was contained within a singularity as proposed by the big bang theory then they have a finite extension which cannot be larger than the current extent of our universe. Otherwise they would have extended faster than light. However this may not apply to the gravitational field.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: alancalverd on 17/11/2014 09:03:49
Field "lines" are nonexistent - they are the way we represent the field on paper.

Field strength falls off as 1/r2, as proved by Cavendish. 1/r2 > 0 for any r. Thus the field does indeed extend to infinity because wherever you can put your test charge to look for it, you will find it. Unless, of course, you can move your test charge faster than light. But as the minimum charge has finite mass, you can't. 
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 18/11/2014 09:25:21
Quote from: alancalverd
Field "lines" are nonexistent - they are the way we represent the field on paper.
Excellent point yet again. Too bad textbooks never mention it. Authors don't seem to think that it's necessary. However some do. See:
http://van.physics.illinois.edu/QA/listing.php?id=27163&t=magnetic-field-lines-dont-really-exist

which also holds for electric field lines.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 18/11/2014 13:57:11
Field "lines" are nonexistent - they are the way we represent the field on paper.
True. But note this quote by Minkowski from Space and Time:

"In the description of the field caused by the electron itself, then it will appear that the division of the field into electric and magnetic forces is a relative one with respect to the time-axis assumed; the two forces considered together can most vividly be described by a certain analogy to the force-screw in mechanics; the analogy is, however, imperfect".

The radial electric field lines and concentric magnetic field lines are more like "lines of force" rather than field lines. The field of the electron is the electromagnetic field. Try depicting electromagnetic field lines.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: alancalverd on 18/11/2014 15:33:11
I hate to be picky but the notion of lines of force, concentric  magnetic field lines, etc still conveys the wrong idea. Both the electric and magnetic field are contuinuums. We can draw lines to indicate the polarity and divergence of fields but they have no physical reality. The electromagnetic field is summarised by the Poynting vector.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 18/11/2014 16:25:11
I respectfully disagree with that. Take a look at Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics section 11.10 where he says "one should properly speak of the electromagnetic field Fμv rather than E or B separately". The important point is that the field is the electromagnetic field. When two charged particles interact we see linear motion and/or rotational motion. If we have some contrivance of charged particles wherein we only see linear motion, we talk of an electric field. If we have some contrivance of charged particles wherein we only see rotational motion, we talk of a magnetic field. But see wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field#Dynamics_of_the_electromagnetic_field). These "are better thought of as two parts of a greater whole - the electromagnetic field". It's only when you take this on board along with the Minkowski quote do you appreciate that when two Fμv fields interact, the result is linear force E and/or rotational force B. Here's a simple depiction of combining electric field lines and magnetic field lines to yield electromagnetic field lines:

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Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: alancalverd on 18/11/2014 16:55:32
The lines are very pretty, but what do they mean? A charged particle will move radially, and a magnet  will align tangential to your circles, but what do the spirals have to do with anything? And what determines the curvature of the spirals?
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 18/11/2014 17:15:53
The spirals show the frame dragging of the electromagnetic field which is akin to the frame dragging of the gravitomagnetic field. It was Oliver Heaviside who came up with gravitomagnetism as an "analogy" of electromagnetism. See this NASA article (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/04may_epic/) which talks about twisted space:

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fscience.nasa.gov%2Fmedia%2Fmedialibrary%2F2011%2F05%2F04%2Ftwist_strip.jpg%2Fimage_full&hash=b3c8f560a9236143ad9b78bc7f14277d)

IMHO there has to be some similarity between the electromagnetic field and the gravitomagnetic field. And I think depicting "electromagnetic field lines" as above is a start. Have a look at vector field images (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vector+field&sa=X&biw=1366&bih=628&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=GX5rVOH6J4GOPZ3DgeAE&ved=0CDAQsAQ) and you see stuff like this: 

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lhk8y1LkSq1qbdydv.png&hash=e11800e00bbab99dfebc78a21eb31cbd)
 
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 25/11/2014 16:41:00
I intended to keep my question focussed and confined to the concept of 'charge' in electrostatics, but the discussion has interestingly branched out into an appraisal of the the whole field of physical forces. I've learnt a lot from it. I wanted to thank PmbPhy for his suggestion that I read David J Griffiths book on Electrostatics et al. I found Griffiths a master of his subject.

But, the answer to my original question, was summed up in just one statement on Page 95 and I quote:
"Still, the infinite energy of a point charge is a recurring embarrassment for electromagnetic theory, afflicting the quantum version as well as the classical."

This statement chimed with my thoughts as being physically impossible and was the original motivation behind my posting of this particular question, to find out what others might think. If this is one of the axioms upon which electrostatics is based, then I find the theory a non-starter.

The concept of an electric charge was introduced by Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century around the time that Newton developed his theory of gravity. There is a striking comparison, in that both theories involve the interaction between two or more particles/bodies of matter and both state that the force between them falls off with the square of the distance.

But just like Einstein swept away Newton's Theory of Gravity with his General Theory of Relativity at the beginning of the 20th century, perhaps its time to discard the concept of electrostatic charge and replace it with a completely new theory?   
 
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 25/11/2014 17:37:21
Quote from: alancalverd
I hate to be picky but the notion of lines of force, concentric  magnetic field lines, etc still conveys the wrong idea.
Why is that? I've always found them to be extremely useful. So long as one doesn't make any attempt to think of the lines as moving then I see no problem with them. What is the wrong idea that you think they convey? They merely represent a graphic visualization of the field itself.

Quote from: alancalverd
Both the electric and magnetic field are contuinuums.
What does this have to do with the point you're making?

Quote from: alancalverd
We can draw lines to indicate the polarity and divergence of fields but they have no physical reality.
We agree that they're not physically real so there's no need to repeat it again. However the do represent things that are real.

Quote from: alancalverd
The electromagnetic field is summarised by the Poynting vector.
Why do you say that? In what way is the EM summarized by the Poynting vector?
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 26/11/2014 13:33:39
I intended to keep my question focussed and confined to the concept of 'charge' in electrostatics, but the discussion has interestingly branched out into an appraisal of the the whole field of physical forces. I've learnt a lot from it. I wanted to thank PmbPhy for his suggestion that I read David J Griffiths book on Electrostatics et al. I found Griffiths a master of his subject. But, the answer to my original question, was summed up in just one statement on Page 95 and I quote:
"Still, the infinite energy of a point charge is a recurring embarrassment for electromagnetic theory, afflicting the quantum version as well as the classical."
The very notion of a point charge is a recurring embarrassment for electromagnetic theory. The electron is not some point-particle that has a field. Field is what it is. You make it out of light in pair production. Light isn't made up of point-particles either, E=hc/λ applies to a photon. It has a wave nature. And you can diffract electrons. They have a wave nature too.

This statement chimed with my thoughts as being physically impossible and was the original motivation behind my posting of this particular question, to find out what others might think. If this is one of the axioms upon which electrostatics is based, then I find the theory a non-starter.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. A tweak here and there, and everything is just fine.

The concept of an electric charge was introduced by Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century around the time that Newton developed his theory of gravity. There is a striking comparison, in that both theories involve the interaction between two or more particles/bodies of matter and both state that the force between them falls off with the square of the distance. But just like Einstein swept away Newton's Theory of Gravity with his General Theory of Relativity at the beginning of the 20th century, perhaps its time to discard the concept of electrostatic charge and replace it with a completely new theory?
I'd say it's time to throw out the garbage that has cluttered up the theory.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 26/11/2014 22:08:15
Quote
The very notion of a point charge is a recurring embarrassment for electromagnetic theory. The electron is not some point-particle that has a field. Field is what it is. You make it out of light in pair production. Light isn't made up of point-particles either, E=hc/λ applies to a photon. It has a wave nature. And you can diffract electrons. They have a wave nature too.

I don't for a minute dispute your views about the electron and the anti-electron. In fact I think of them as 'bound radiant energy'. It's fact that they are created as an electron-anti-electron pair by hard gamma rays interacting with the nucleus of an atom and morph back into gamma rays upon collision. But radiant energy does not carry any electrostatic charge, positive or negative. So where does the charge on the electron and positron come from? Never mind that this 'magic charge' has infinite energy.

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Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. A tweak here and there, and everything is just fine.

There are other weak links in electrostatic theory to consider as well. How is it that electric charge always appears as multiples of a fixed magnitude? The proton and the electron have totally different masses, yet carry the same charge, albeit of a different sign.

Why doesn't the neutrino and the neutron carry a charge? What is special about them?

Why do the Up and Down Quarks get allocated +2/3 rds and -1/3 rd of the electron's charge, except to fix the result so that the neutron has no charge and the proton has a positive unit of charge.

What is the difference in reality between a positive and a negative charge if the electron and anti-electron are constructed from field energy.

The concept of 'Global Conservation of Charge' is a bit unbelievable, as it relies upon instant communication across galaxies, even less believable perhaps, than the 'instant attractive force' between distant masses that challenged the credibility of Newton's theory of gravity.

The concept of 'local conservation of charge' is more reasonable, but only within the confines of the atom. It seems unlikely that the tiny positive electric charge associated with a single proton can carry much beyond the confines of the electron cloud around the nucleus. (However, I don't for a minute dispute the power of harvested electrons accumulating upon an insulating material.)

The 'supposition principle' used to calculate the electrostatic force acting upon a 'test charge' in the vicinity of a collection of charged particles seems a little contrived. Every charged particle must interact with every other charged particle. But if one charged particle interacted with two other particles, it would only be able to apply half its attracting or repelling force to each one. Unless, of course it has infinite energy to offer up.

Which brings us back to the first questioning of the validity of the concept of an electrostatic charge, what ever form it takes.

Quote
I'd say it's time to throw out the garbage that has cluttered up the theory.


I'm not sure what garbage there is in electrostatic theory that you have in mind, but I may have added a few more for you to consider.

May I stress that I don't wish to undermine the brilliance of Benjamin Franklin or the scientific value that his concept of electrostatics has been to the human race. But nothing lasts forever and I believe that enough cracks are appearing in the theory to warrant a review. Papering over them is not our scientific ethos.   








 
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 27/11/2014 09:51:18
Quote from: RTCPhysics
I don't for a minute dispute your views about the electron and the anti-electron.
You should. To experimental limits it's an experimental fact that electrons are point charges.

Quote from: RTCPhysics
Why doesn't the neutrino and the neutron carry a charge? What is special about them?  etc...
Some of your questions are answered by saying that it's what defines a particular particle. However to a large degree nobody knows the answer to your questions. With every theory we know more and more but also with every level of theory one can ask "Why?" and with each level of theory we have an answer until we no longer have a theory. One level of theory is chemistry. At the next level is atomic theory. At the next level is elementary particle physics. That's where we stop. So what we know as fundamental facts in particle physics cannot be explained right now.

I'm not a particle physicist and it's been many years since I've read up on it so I can't tell you what can and can be explained by it. What I do know is that you can't expect all of your questions (perhaps even none) to currently have answers.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: alancalverd on 27/11/2014 21:48:35

Quote
Why doesn't the neutrino and the neutron carry a charge? What is special about them?
For the same reason that girls don't  have a Y chromosome. It's part of the definition. 
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 28/11/2014 16:58:35
I don't for a minute dispute your views about the electron and the anti-electron. In fact I think of them as 'bound radiant energy'. It's fact that they are created as an electron-anti-electron pair by hard gamma rays interacting with the nucleus of an atom and morph back into gamma rays upon collision. But radiant energy does not carry any electrostatic charge, positive or negative. So where does the charge on the electron and positron come from?
From the positive and negative field-variations of the original electromagnetic waves. When you "wrap" or wind the waves up, all of the positive field variation is on the outside. Or all of the negative field-variation on the outside. This animation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLlGViRkjio) attempts to depict it. I don't think it gets it right, but it's barking up the right tree.   

There are other weak links in electrostatic theory to consider as well. How is it that electric charge always appears as multiples of a fixed magnitude? The proton and the electron have totally different masses, yet carry the same charge, albeit of a different sign.
Because electromagnetism is all about curvature, and in both cases the winding goes full circle.     

Why doesn't the neutrino and the neutron carry a charge? What is special about them?
On brute properties the neutrino is actually more like a photon than it's like an electron. And the neutron is a bit like a hydrogen atom.   

Why do the Up and Down Quarks get allocated +2/3 rds and -1/3 rd of the electron's charge, except to fix the result so that the neutron has no charge and the proton has a positive unit of charge.
I don't know. We've never seen a free quark.

What is the difference in reality between a positive and a negative charge if the electron and anti-electron are constructed from field energy.
The chirality. It's like you can tie your shoelaces left-over-right or right-over-left.

The concept of 'Global Conservation of Charge' is a bit unbelievable, as it relies upon instant communication across galaxies
Don't worry about it, it's only something like conservation of angular momentum.

even less believable perhaps, than the 'instant attractive force' between distant masses that challenged the credibility of Newton's theory of gravity.
Newton didn't believe in action at a distance.

The 'supposition principle' used to calculate the electrostatic force acting upon a 'test charge' in the vicinity of a collection of charged particles seems a little contrived.
Sorry, I don't know what that is. The superposition principle is just a wave thing, and electrons are waves.

Which brings us back to the first questioning of the validity of the concept of an electrostatic charge, what ever form it takes.
I think it's valid enough, but IMHO what's missing is how pair production actually works, and what the electron actually is.

I'm not sure what garbage there is in electrostatic theory that you have in mind, but I may have added a few more for you to consider.
I was thinking of the idea that electrons and protons throw photons at one another.

May I stress that I don't wish to undermine the brilliance of Benjamin Franklin or the scientific value that his concept of electrostatics has been to the human race. But nothing lasts forever and I believe that enough cracks are appearing in the theory to warrant a review. Papering over them is not our scientific ethos.
IMHO the problem is in modern teaching rather than the theory itself.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 28/11/2014 18:41:41
I think we've reached the end of the line with this one.
 
Thanks everyone for your thoughts and ideas.

John
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 30/11/2014 19:03:52
Hi, John D,

Seems I jumped the gun with my last post. I liked your 'riposte'.

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From the positive and negative field-variations of the original electromagnetic waves. When you "wrap" or wind the waves up, all of the positive field variation is on the outside. Or all of the negative field-variation on the outside. This animation attempts to depict it. I don't think it gets it right, but it's barking up the right tree.   

The animation was excellent. I'd never really thought of a photon as being just one cycle, nor of the electric vector changing sign and the magnetic vector changing pole. Food for thought.

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On brute properties the neutrino is actually more like a photon than it's like an electron. And the neutron is a bit like a hydrogen atom.

Whether the neutrino is a particle or a photon seems to be unknown and another point for discussion. The Neutron as you point out, decays into a Proton plus an electron (and anti-neutrino) creating the hydrogen atom. So both positive and negative charges are somehow created by the Neutron from this process.

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Because electromagnetism is all about curvature, and in both cases the winding goes full circle. 


Your concept of charge brings Saturn with its rings to mind as a model. Which has the property of making the charge independent of a particle's mass or 'windings'?

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The chirality. It's like you can tie your shoelaces left-over-right or right-over-left.

Chirality is a known phenomenon and could explain the different charges. Another possible explanation for the electron is its 'spin', clockwise or anti-clockwise, which could also account for the pairing up of electrons in their orbits around the nucleus.

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Sorry, I don't know what that is. The superposition principle is just a wave thing, and electrons are waves.


Finger trouble on my part. Missed out the 'er'.

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I was thinking of the idea that electrons and protons throw photons at one another.


Virtual photons, I believe! The clash between 'particle physics' and 'classical field physics' is far from a dead and buried issue, I believe.

Once again sorry to have jumped the gun. The other replies you made that I've missed out were uncontentious.

John Day


Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 01/12/2014 01:08:40
Quote from: JohnDuffield
Because electromagnetism is all about curvature, ...
I disagree. Electromagnetism has absolutely nothing to do with curvature other than when there's a large amount of electromagnetic energy it can generate a gravitational field and if the matter is distributed such that the field has tidal forces in a given region then there will be spacetime curvature in that region.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 01/12/2014 14:03:47
I disagree. Electromagnetism has absolutely nothing to do with curvature other than when there's a large amount of electromagnetic energy it can generate a gravitational field and if the matter is distributed such that the field has tidal forces in a given region then there will be spacetime curvature in that region.
Have a read of the role of the potentials in electromagnetism (http://www.compumag.org/jsite/images/stories/newsletter/ICS-99-06-2-Hammond.pdf) by Percy Hammond, see this in the paragraph before the end note: "We conclude that the field describes the curvature that characterizes the electromagnetic interaction". Google on electromagnetic geometry (https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=electromagnetic+geometry), and check out Inhomogeneous Vacuum: An Alternative Interpretation of Curved Spacetime (http://iopscience.iop.org/0256-307X/25/5/014) along with Einstein's Leyden Address (http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Einstein_ether.html):

"...recognition of the fact that "empty space" in its physical relation is neither homogeneous nor isotropic..."

Also see this Baez article (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/einstein/node2.html) where you can read this:

"Similarly, in general relativity gravity is not really a `force', but just a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime. Note: not the curvature of space, but of spacetime. The distinction is crucial."

We talk about curved spacetime, but Einstein didn't. Space isn't curved where a gravitational field is, instead it's inhomogeneous where a gravitational field is. And where an electromagnetic field is, space is curved. For an analogy imagine you're standing on a headland looking out to sea. You notice a single wave coming towards you, and then you notice that its path curves left a little. This is because of a salinity gradient, there's an estuary on your right. The sea is inhomogeneous. Now look at the surface of the sea where the wave is. It's curved.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 01/12/2014 14:27:44
The animation was excellent. I'd never really thought of a photon as being just one cycle, nor of the electric vector changing sign and the magnetic vector changing pole. Food for thought.
The thing you never really hear about is the photon-photon interaction or displacement current. If you look around for an explanation of how pair production actually works, you won't get an answer. You'll get something like two photons disappear and the electron and positron pop into existence like magic.   

Whether the neutrino is a particle or a photon seems to be unknown and another point for discussion. The Neutron as you point out, decays into a Proton plus an electron (and anti-neutrino) creating the hydrogen atom. So both positive and negative charges are somehow created by the Neutron from this process.
They were there in the neutron, it has a magnetic moment. This is caused by "the motion of charge".

Your concept of charge brings Saturn with its rings to mind as a model.
It's better to think of an electron as something like Saturn's rings rather a little billiard-ball thing going round a proton like a moon round a planet. See atomic orbitals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital) on Wikipedia and note this:

"The electrons do not orbit the nucleus in the sense of a planet orbiting the sun, but instead exist as standing waves."

Of course Saturn's rings aren't quite right either, but it's a start.

Which has the property of making the charge independent of a particle's mass or 'windings'?
Kind of. The mass is a measure of how much energy is there. The charge is a measure of how many times it wraps around. Note that spin ½ particles are likened to Dirac's belt, which is akin to a Moebius strip where you have to go round twice to get back where you started.

Chirality is a known phenomenon and could explain the different charges. Another possible explanation for the electron is its 'spin', clockwise or anti-clockwise, which could also account for the pairing up of electrons in their orbits around the nucleus.
Hmmmn. The spin isn't quite clockwise or anticlockwise. Imagine you start with two glass clocks, and you look at the hands going round clockwise. But when you walk round to the back of the clocks, and the hands look like they're going round anticlockwise. And then you spin the clocks like coins. You spin one clock one way with your left hand, and you spin the other clock the other way with your right hand. Each clock now have a compound rotation. They are "bispinors", but their rotations are not the same. 

Virtual photons, I believe! The clash between 'particle physics' and 'classical field physics' is far from a dead and buried issue, I believe.
Hydrogen atoms do not twinkle, and magnets do not shine. Virtual photons are "field quanta". It's like you chop the field up into little squares and say each is virtual particle. It isn't actually a particle. See Matt Strassler's article (http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/), but maybe his website is down at the moment. He says this:

"A virtual particle is not a particle at all. It refers precisely to a disturbance in a field that is not a particle".
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: Notso on 02/12/2014 18:02:50
Why do the Up and Down Quarks get allocated +2/3 rds and -1/3 rd of the electron's charge, except to fix the result so that the neutron has no charge and the proton has a positive unit of charge.

The ratios of charges are absolute. The numerically assigned values are relative. If, for some reason, convention was to give the electron a charge of 2, then the up and down quarks would have +4/3 and -2/3 charges respectively. It's not to "fix" a result, that's just how it happens to be. In fact, if we measure the electric charge in Coulombs instead of electron charges, we can demonstrate this exactly...

The neutron happens to be made of 3 particles, 2 are the same and 1 different, and the 2 that are the same happen to have opposite and half the charge of the other. That's just how our universe happens to be.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 22/12/2014 16:44:17
Quote
The ratios of charges are absolute. The numerically assigned values are relative. If, for some reason, convention was to give the electron a charge of 2, then the up and down quarks would have +4/3 and -2/3 charges respectively. It's not to "fix" a result, that's just how it happens to be. In fact, if we measure the electric charge in Coulombs instead of electron charges, we can demonstrate this exactly...

The neutron happens to be made of 3 particles, 2 are the same and 1 different, and the 2 that are the same happen to have opposite and half the charge of the other. That's just how our universe happens to be.
Quote

I've come cross this point before and if you choose a factor of 3 then the charges on the Up & Down quarks become whole numbers. But we haven't progressed, just specified that the measure of charge upon an electron is 3 electron volts.

I need help to understand the point about changing the units from electron volts to coulombs. How does introducing the conversion factor of 6.24 x1018 affect or explain the allocation of charge between the two quark types. But perhaps I've missed a point here.

But there are two interesting questions which arise from the process of allocating electrostatic charge between the two types of quark that make up the proton and the neutron.

Firstly, as the charges allocated are +ve and -ve, then it follows that the structure of the Up & Down Quarks within the Proton and the Neutron must form a + - + and - + - pattern, otherwise the quarks would repel each other.

Secondly, as the Up and Down quarks have never been observed to exist singly, only in pairs (mesons) and threes (Hadrons) then besides being held together by their opposite electric charges, they must also bind Proton to Neutron by the same means to form a nucleus. If Coulomb's law holds at the atomic level Q1Q2/d2, then, as the distance is zero, the binding force from the two opposite charges must be infinite and the magnitude of the allocated charge is immaterial.

Finally, is it Gluons, as defined in the Standard Model or Electrostatic Charge that binds hadrons together in the nucleus? Or both!

I still favour the perception that no electrostatic charges reside upon Quarks or Anti-Quarks. At the moment, it just doesn't make sense to me.

     
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 01/01/2015 16:16:10
Hi, John D,

Quote
The thing you never really hear about is the photon-photon interaction or displacement current. If you look around for an explanation of how pair production actually works, you won't get an answer. You'll get something like two photons disappear and the electron and positron pop into existence like magic.   

Your focus upon the lack of a clear explanation by physicists of: pair-production, displacement current and photon-photon interaction chimed with me. But the other explanations of: ‘motion of charge within neutrons’ and ‘electrons as standing waves’ seemed to be much the same. The concept of ‘charged electron pairs as bispinors’ made more sense to me, but with one reservation. How do ‘like charges’ stay together even if they wrap around the paired electrons?

My life experience tells me that when too many unknowns arise within a body of knowledge, then something is being fundamentally misunderstood. Ideas and concepts have been created by clever people to explain the situation under study and have become the ‘perceived wisdom’. But they are just plain wrong, whether within a business or a scientific community.  In business it’s said, go back and listen to the customer, in science it is go back to the experimental data.

The two main concepts of physics which I believe meet this criteria, are Benjamin Franklin with his concept of an ‘electric charge’ and Maxwell with his concept of an ‘electromagnetic wave’. Physics becomes a lot simpler if the concepts of an ‘electric charge’ and an ‘electric field’ are ditched.

What are the implications of this, besides a bit of a re-write of physics in parts?

1.   Electromagnetic radiant energy becomes simply magnetic in its nature. It is created by the despatch of a magnetic ring spun off from the magnetic field created by an electron moving in a current carrying wire or an electron ‘excited’ in an atom. The magnetic ring departs at the ‘speed of light’, which gives it its sinusoidal wave characteristic.

2.   To explain its ability to carry energy, it needs the concept of ’electric charge’ to be replaced by the concept of a ‘magnetic pulse’, which traverses around its magnetic ring at the speed of light, absorbing and re-creating the magnetic ring on its journey around it, without the loss of energy.  The smaller the ring, the higher the frequency and vice –versa. (E=hf). f = frequency.

3.   The magnetic pulse has the energy to eject electrons from their atoms and explains why a magnetic field induces a current in a conducting wire (Induction) and photons can do the same by dislodging electrons in silicon (Photoelectric effect).

4.   In this magnetic world, electrons have no charge, but they do have spin and if moving generate a magnetic ring around themselves. The magnetic ring concept of the photon therefore explains why light is reflected by the electrons in the surface of a material through magnetic deflection or, in translucent materials, bent by the magnetic deflection of the electrons in the material.

5.   Two electrons in the same orbit around a nucleus must become ‘bispinors’ so that their magnetic rings are attracting, not repelling each other (Pauli exclusion principle) and they spin together like two meshing cogs.

6.   The spin characteristic of the electron is the means by which a magnetic ring is created. The electron spins at the speed of light and when the electron undergoes acceleration from an event such as a striking photon, it absorbs enough energy to enable it to spin off a photon.

I appreciate that this concept likens the electron to a particle and its spin or angular momentum characteristic to a spinning top, which goes against some viewpoints, but, IMHO, doesn't necessarily invalidate the concept. 
   
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: jeffreyH on 01/01/2015 18:08:40
RTCPhysics: Except you have two fields and not one. You have an electric field and a magnetic field. You could say that radio waves when encountering an antenna induce a current which must be magnetic in nature and therefore the photon must be magnetic. The neutron which has no or very residual charge does have a magnetic moment so why not the photon? Well if you can think of an experiment to prove this then your theory might fly
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 03/01/2015 15:05:13
Quote
Well if you can think of an experiment to prove this then your theory might fly
.

Thanks, Jeffrey.

I was expecting to be sat upon from a great height for challenging two of our greatest scientists.

In answer to your question, I believe that the experiments have already been done, but can be interpreted in a different way.

I need to start with the properties of magnetism. If you cut a permanent magnet in two, its rings don’t remain cut and continue on their way, but reform as smaller magnetic rings around each of the two separated magnets. Bring the two magnets back together and the magnetic rings re-form again as they were. I think this property is taken for granted, but it offers a different way of interpreting two iconic experiments that come to mind: Young’s two slit experiment and the single split-photon experiment done with Michelson-Morley’s style apparatus.

Let’s take the ‘two slit experiment’ first.  A screen is set up which has two slits cut into it. Coherent light, with a wavelength greater than the distance between these two slits, is shone upon it, with the result that a band of diffraction lines appear upon a target screen, rather than the classically expected two bright vertical lines.

But, because the photons have a pulsed magnetic ring nature, the photon can travel through either slit or split in two and pass through both slits at the same time. Which option it takes, depends upon where the magnetic pulse of the ring happens to be on its circuit, when it hits the target screen. If it arrives at either of the slits, it can pass straight through. But if it impinges between the two slits, it is able to split into two rings and passes through both slits, re-forming at the target screen. If it impinges outside of the two slits then it is deflected along the screen and through its nearest slit. The fact that the magnetic ring has to ease through a slit is the cause of its deflection, left or right, by the edges of the slit and this results in the vertical band of diffraction lines on the target screen.

Looked at from a Feynman perspective, the magnetic pulse travels around its circle in a plane vertical to its direction of travel, so at any juncture, the pulse could be seen to be travelling at the velocity of light along all pathways towards the slits. (But not outside of the magnetic ring’s diameter until it passes through the slits.) 

Secondly, the split-photon experiment with Michelson-Morley style apparatus uses the same magnetic ring capability. The incidence of a single photon upon the edge of the ‘beam splitter’, causes it to split into two smaller photons, which travel along the two pathways and reform as the original photon at the detector.

They may be other iconic experiments which test this concept. Perhaps you can think of them.

John
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: jeffreyH on 03/01/2015 17:17:14
If you apply no external forces to a bar magnet then nothing moves. If you move the magnet past a wire you can induce a charge. If you apply a charge through a wire you can induce flux in a magnetic field. The photon moves and as it does moves through various types of field at various points. If we imagine an imaginary static photon, a snapshot of its path, then being stationary it would have a stationary field around it as nothing is happening. When considering a photon with velocity c and moving its field should also be in motion simply because of its interactions with fields of infinite extent. The double slit experimental results could be due to the motions of waves in this field. With a field in motion around the photon we can then explain radio waves. Would this be magnetic in motion? I have no idea.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: jeffreyH on 03/01/2015 17:38:07
OK so if we consider spinning particles we can consider the electron, proton and neutron. Since the exclusion principle with electrons pair then with opposite spin the overall movement in the electric field should cancel. In the neutron and proton pair do we have a similar exclusion principle? If so then a proton paired with a neutron should have counter spin. this would mean that a positively charged field would be circulating. This is counter to the static nature of the magnetic field. Some interaction with the outward facing electric field would then be necessary to make the flux zero. However where is the return path for the circulation? It cannot be the proton as that would mean the positive charge returning to itself. This is the only way I can think of applying your ideas but there are major problems.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 03/01/2015 18:48:54
Quote from: JohnDuffield
]
Have a read of the role of the potentials in electromagnetism (http://www.compumag.org/jsite/images/stories/newsletter/ICS-99-06-2-Hammond.pdf) ...
I don't need to read such things. What I  needed to know I learned in graduate school.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 03/01/2015 18:58:06
Quote from: jeffreyH
RTCPhysics: Except you have two fields and not one. You have an electric field and a magnetic field.
Hi Jeff,

Please fill me in on how you got to this point. Why did you make this remark? You're aware, aren't you, that special relativivity combines the electric and magnetic field into one field called the electromagnetic field which is described by a second rank tensor called the electromagnetic field, right?
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: jeffreyH on 03/01/2015 19:09:02
Well John was making the point that the electromagnetic field becomes magnetic in nature and that this magnetic nature was important and that the concept of electric charge was not needed. This is exactly like saying there is only 1 field produced. The electromagnetic field has two components classically. I was ignoring the relativistic interpretation.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: jeffreyH on 03/01/2015 22:21:38
In case anyone wants an explanation of tensor rank a good source is found here:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TensorRank.html
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 04/01/2015 23:39:15
Well John was making the point that the electromagnetic field becomes magnetic in nature and that this magnetic nature was important and that the concept of electric charge was not needed. This is exactly like saying there is only 1 field produced. The electromagnetic field has two components classically. I was ignoring the relativistic interpretation.
Yeah, but John rarely, if ever, backs up some of his more outrageous claims with logical arguments reasons so arguing with his is a real waste of time. Especially since he rarely backs up his claims.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 05/01/2015 19:44:00
In case anyone wants an explanation of tensor rank a good source is found here:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TensorRank.html

Here's the definition I put on my website for a second rank tensor and it also provides motivation for it:
http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/math_phy/tensors_via_analytic.htm

There are two ways to define tensors. The more common way to define them now is found here:
http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/math_phy/tensor_via_geometric.htm
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 10/01/2015 12:13:35
Quote
Yeah, but John rarely, if ever, backs up some of his more outrageous claims with logical arguments reasons so arguing with his is a real waste of time. Especially since he rarely backs up his claims.

In this reply, what I've tried to do is scan through your posts on this topic, in order to understand the concepts and in some cases beliefs that you hold regarding electrostatic theory. To this I've added some inconsistencies in the theory that have developed in light of current knowledge. I don't want to be adversarial, but would appreciate you taking time to ponder the thought that if Benjamin Franklin had never lived and someone had approached you today with this pitch on electrostatics as a breakthrough idea for Physics, would you have made the same statement as quoted above?

Summary of Electrostatics Theory.

Electrostatics requires there to be an entity called a ‘charge’ and these apparently can have only two independent forms, called positive and negative.

Like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract each other. This concept enables them to create a real physical force upon one another.

The force that they can exert on one another obeys a law devised by Coulomb, namely: Kq1q2/d2, where K is Coulombs constant and d is the straight line distance between them.

Each charge has exactly the same magnitude, although no one knows what its physical structure actually is. Conventionally, it is considered to be a point charge, which axiomatically implies that it has no discernible dimensions.

Each charge is believed to be able to create a three dimensional field around itself, which stretches right across the universe in its influence.

Each field is viewed as continuous and smooth, having no discrete quantum mechanical nature.

No energy is required to maintain this universal field. Energy is only used when a charge changes location or a new charge appears. How this field energy is exchanged between charges is a unknown. Whether it is purely an electrostatic field or an electromagnetic field that exchanges photons is unclear.

Every positive and negative charge in existence has this capability and their infinite fields criss-cross one another throughout the expanding universe.

It is thought that the universe contains equal numbers of positive and negative charges, which makes the universe itself neutrally charged.

However, if a region of space could be defined where the charges were not equally balanced, then the charges would attract and repel each other until equilibrium is achieved. The force at any point in their combined fields can be calculated by summing up the individual vector forces acting at that point from every charge in the region.

Charges cannot exist by themselves but are assumed to reside within, around or upon particles, such as the electron and the proton. It is unknown exactly what form the charge takes in conjunction with the electron or the proton.

The charge upon a particle cannot change its value and is therefore viewed as an infinite resource.

Hence if an electron is contained within a Penning trap, its electric charge must still function outside of the trap, otherwise it would effectively lose some of its electric charge, which is not theoretically allowed.

Two electrons with differing spins are known to reside in an orbit around the nucleus of an atom, but as the distance between their respective negative charges is zero, the repelling force according to Coulomb's law must be infinite. But if it was, then electron pairs would not exist. But they do.

When a charged particle collides with its anti-particle, the attracting force again is infinite and they must theoretically coalesce, but in reality they annihilate one another.

As you know, I find the concepts behind this body of knowledge as weak and unconvincing and the theoretical constructs based upon them as believable only upon a blackboard. The experimental verification of it seems patchy to non-existent, the best being the one with semolina seeds and castor oil. If you have any doubts, as I have, the question you face is what replaces it!
 
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 11/01/2015 20:13:41
Hi, Jeffrey,
Quote
If the fields generated by charge extend to infinity as theory suggests then all negative and all positive fields overlap. If we sum the total contributions of either charge at every point then the value tends towards infinity. Correct me if I am wrong. Thus the need for re-normalization where only the differences in the strength of charges are taken into account. if we sum all contributions at a particular point in space what value would this tend towards? Altogether the two fields when summed and subtracted should be zero.

I have just tracked  back over your posts and was prompted into the thought that there seems to be two competing concepts of  what an electrostatic field actually is.

Firstly there is the concept of a charge with a series of discrete lines of electrostatic energy emanating from it in all directions, thereby creating a three dimensional force field around itself. This concept appears to assume that an infinite number of lines of force can emanate from each charge, which in theory can travel an infinite distance. I call this the ‘Lines of Force theory’.

Secondly, and this seems more recent concept, there exists a three dimensional electrostatic continuum, (by definition smooth and continuous), which permeates the whole of our universe. All charged particles reside within it, but it only mediates a force of attraction or repulsion, if it senses any movement of an electrostatic charge and reacts to this movement according to Coulombs Law. The charge upon particles do not emit lines of force and therefore do not require a source of energy themselves. This energy resides in the Continuum. I call this the ‘Continuum theory’ for want of a better title.

You made the point in one of your posts, that an isolated positive charge must create one type of field and an isolated negative charge another. And these fields must overlap on their way to infinity. Which I interpreted as electrostatic field theory and also thought that it was a novel understanding. To it, I would add the proviso rule, that all lines of force emanating from a positive or negative charge must veer towards the nearest opposite charge, thereby creating an attracting force and conforming to the inverse proportionality to the 'distance between charges', enshrined in Coulombs Law. (And vice versa for like charges that repel). So, the consequence of this rule is that no lines of force will continue to infinity, although theoretically they could.

But the fields generated by two unlike charges, must be able to recognise that they are different, so that they can attract or repel in accordance with their charge signs. How they do this is, I believe, unknown.

Another oddity of this ‘lines of force’ theory is that all particles having a charge and being free to move, must adjust their positions so that they are in equilibrium with all he other charges around them and this cannot be contained within an arbitrary region of space, but must stretch throughout the universe.

If we were considering a body of matter, then all charged particles at the edge of the body of matter must emit an electrostatic field that enters the space around themselves before returning to their nearest charge. In this case an electrostatic field must reside upon the surface of every body of matter. It could, of course, be the cause of friction and the phenomenon of surface tension on a fluid.

The next interesting point you raised was the question of how fast does the energy in a ‘line of force’ travel. If the universe is expanding faster than light then the ‘lines of force’ theory applied to electrostatics is in more trouble.

The ‘continuum theory’ solves many of the shortcomings of field theory as applied to electrostatics. It permeates the universe and as it contains stored energy, the speed of transfer of energy between charges is not an issue. The concept implies that electric charges somehow know about one another and are in a permanent state of equilibrium. If a change in the location of a charge occurs, due to an outside force, then all other charges know about it immediately and respond according to Coulombs law.  How energy is stored in the continuum is unknown and how charges know about each other is somewhat inexplicable.

I find continuum theory more of a question of faith, than a reality, but there is a lot of weird stuff being explored at the present. Electron tunnelling and electron entanglement for two, but the Higgs boson is up there with them.

In summary, its easier to teach electrostatics as ‘field theory’ than ‘continuum theory‘, which is what I believe happens in the classroom. But I am sticking to my guns and staying with the view that the concept an electrostatic charge or an electrostatic continuum is an unnecessary complication of Physics.
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 12/01/2015 21:21:58
Sorry RTC, I somehow missed your post:

Your focus upon the lack of a clear explanation by physicists of: pair-production, displacement current and photon-photon interaction chimed with me. But the other explanations of: ‘motion of charge within neutrons’ and ‘electrons as standing waves’ seemed to be much the same.
Stick at it, and a picture emerges that's surprisingly simple. You know that a photon is a field variation. Suppose you could make a field variation go round and round in a tight circle. Now make it even tighter, and make it like Dirac's belt (http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath619/kmath619.htm), which is like a Mobius strip. Try this with a strip of paper with a sine wave drawn on it, such that low parts of the sine wave are aligned with the high parts, and instead of a field variation, you've got a standing field. Pair production has to work like this in some respect. 

The concept of ‘charged electron pairs as bispinors’ made more sense to me, but with one reservation. How do ‘like charges’ stay together even if they wrap around the paired electrons?
The electrons themselves are "like charges". They stay together in an atom because the protons have the opposite charge.

My life experience tells me that when too many unknowns arise within a body of knowledge, then something is being fundamentally misunderstood. Ideas and concepts have been created by clever people to explain the situation under study and have become the ‘perceived wisdom’. But they are just plain wrong, whether within a business or a scientific community.  In business it’s said, go back and listen to the customer, in science it is go back to the experimental data.
Well said. Check out the Einstein-de Haas effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93de_Haas_effect) which "demonstrates that spin angular momentum is indeed of the same nature as the angular momentum of rotating bodies as conceived in classical mechanics".

The two main concepts of physics which I believe meet this criteria, are Benjamin Franklin with his concept of an ‘electric charge’ and Maxwell with his concept of an ‘electromagnetic wave’. Physics becomes a lot simpler if the concepts of an ‘electric charge’ and an ‘electric field’ are ditched.
Yes, because it's the electromagnetic field. See John Jackson’s Classical Electrodynamics (https://archive.org/details/ClassicalElectrodynamics) where in section 11.10 before he says "one should properly speak of the electromagnetic field Fμv rather than E or B separately".

What are the implications of this, besides a bit of a re-write of physics in parts?
Nothing. It involves a rewrite of some  popscience, that's all. 

1.   Electromagnetic radiant energy becomes simply magnetic in its nature. It is created by the despatch of a magnetic ring spun off from the magnetic field created by an electron moving in a current carrying wire or an electron ‘excited’ in an atom. The magnetic ring departs at the ‘speed of light’, which gives it its sinusoidal wave characteristic.
Whoa, electromagnetic waves aren't magnetic rings. You've gone the other way here.

2.   To explain its ability to carry energy, it needs the concept of ’electric charge’ to be replaced by the concept of a ‘magnetic pulse’, which traverses around its magnetic ring at the speed of light, absorbing and re-creating the magnetic ring on its journey around it, without the loss of energy.  The smaller the ring, the higher the frequency and vice –versa. (E=hf). f = frequency.
You need to read about electromagnetic four-potential. The photon is said to be a pulse of four-potential.

3.   The magnetic pulse has the energy to eject electrons from their atoms and explains why a magnetic field induces a current in a conducting wire (Induction) and photons can do the same by dislodging electrons in silicon (Photoelectric effect)...
Sorry RTC, this is departing too much from electromagnetism.

I appreciate that this concept likens the electron to a particle and its spin or angular momentum characteristic to a spinning top, which goes against some viewpoints, but, IMHO, doesn't necessarily invalidate the concept.
There's no problem with that. See the discovery of electron spin (http://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/history/spin/goudsmit.html): "When the day came I had to tell Uhlenbeck about the Pauli principle - of course using my own quantum numbers - then he said to me: "But don't you see what this implies? It means that there is a fourth degree of freedom for the electron. It means that the electron has a spin, that it rotates".

IMHO the simple way to understand things like electromagnetic attraction is to remember that the electron has an electromagnetic field. Not an electric field or a magnetic field. An electromagnetic field. And to depict it you remember the word spinor, and then you combine radial electric field lines with concentric magnetic field lines like this:

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2Fforum%2Findex.php%3Faction%3Ddlattach%3Btopic%3D52797.0%3Battach%3D19387%3Bimage&hash=2c67154d1adc753a26ebf6d790f18679)



Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: RTCPhysics on 18/01/2015 09:24:29
 

Sorry RTC, this is departing too much from electromagnetism.

Hi, John,
This needed saying. It jolted me into considering that all magnetic fields whether its the earth's magnetic field, the magnetic field of a permanent magnet or the magnetic field created around a wire by moving electrons, were actually electromagnetic fields. (Ref: Jackson's Special Theory of Relativity which stated that electric or magnetic fields in one system of coordinates would appear as a mixture of electric and magnetic in another coordinate system. Hence no E & B but FμB).

But if the above three examples of magnetic fields are electromagnetic in nature, then they must be comprised of light photons circling at the velocity of light. But what wavelengths would they have?

If we think of an EM field in terms of an infinity of electromagnetic field lines or equally an electromagnetic continuum, then all the wavelengths from a minimum value to a maximum value would be present dependent upon the strength of the magnetic/electromagnetic field.

The minimum wavelength, however, would need to be greater than the wavelengths of the visible part of the EM Spectrum, otherwise we would be able to see the photons circling around in a section of the electromagnetic field. But if a EM field was strong enough, perhaps we could. Now that would be interesting!

Have I once again strayed to far in my imaginings!
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: PmbPhy on 18/01/2015 09:38:32
Quote from: RTCPhysics
Hi, John,
This needed saying. It jolted me into considering that all magnetic fields whether its the earth's magnetic field, the magnetic field of a permanent magnet or the magnetic field created around a wire by moving electrons, were actually electromagnetic fields. (Ref: Jackson's Special Theory of Relativity which stated that electric or magnetic fields in one system of coordinates would appear as a mixture of electric and magnetic in another coordinate system. Hence no E & B but FμB).
That's not quite true. What is true is that in all frames of reference there is an electromagnetic field represented by what's called the Faraday Tensor aka Electromagnetic Field Tensor. The components of this tensor are the components of the electric field and magnetic field 3-vectors. An analogy would be the 4-current, aka current 4-vector.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-current

This 4-vector is defined as J = (cd2606be4e0cd2c9a6179c8f2e3547a85.gif, j) where d2606be4e0cd2c9a6179c8f2e3547a85.gif is the charge density and j is the current density 3-vector. Each of these two quantities are physically meaningful. To measure the 4-current you have to measure charge density and current density. The same thing holds with the EM field. In special relativity there are two special 4-vectors called the electric field 4-vector and the magnetic field 4-vector. See http://rmf.smf.mx/pdf/rmf/34/4/34_4_636.pdf
Title: Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?
Post by: JohnDuffield on 18/01/2015 13:59:09
This needed saying. It jolted me into considering that all magnetic fields whether its the earth's magnetic field, the magnetic field of a permanent magnet or the magnetic field created around a wire by moving electrons, were actually electromagnetic fields. (Ref: Jackson's Special Theory of Relativity which stated that electric or magnetic fields in one system of coordinates would appear as a mixture of electric and magnetic in another coordinate system. Hence no E & B but FμB).
Yes, the field is the electromagnetic field. The thing we call a magnetic field is one "aspect" of the electromagnetic field. See section 11.10 of Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics (https://archive.org/stream/ClassicalElectrodynamics/Jackson-ClassicalElectrodynamics#page/n397/mode/2up/search/properly) where he says "one should properly speak of the electromagnetic field Fuv rather than E or B separately".

But if the above three examples of magnetic fields are electromagnetic in nature, then they must be comprised of light photons circling at the velocity of light. But what wavelengths would they have?
2.426 x 10⁻¹² metres, but don't worry about that. 

If we think of an EM field in terms of an infinity of electromagnetic field lines or equally an electromagnetic continuum, then all the wavelengths from a minimum value to a maximum value would be present dependent upon the strength of the magnetic/electromagnetic field.
No, light has a quantum nature, and when you perform pair production your electron and your positron are always 511keV. 

The minimum wavelength, however, would need to be greater than the wavelengths of the visible part of the EM Spectrum, otherwise we would be able to see the photons circling around in a section of the electromagnetic field. But if a EM field was strong enough, perhaps we could. Now that would be interesting!
Whoa! Don't get ahead of yourself. 

Have I once again strayed to far in my imaginings!
Yes. Try to rein it back a bit. Here, take a look at some pictures of the electromagnetic spectrum (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=electromagnetic+spectrum&biw=1366&bih=571&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Xbu7VNypG8KtU4PLgLgO&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ). What's always the same regardless of frequency?