Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: futuretime on 13/03/2020 22:29:06
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heh :)
Think I've seen that one before. Wasn't it Feynman that had some idea like that?
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This was what it reminded me off
" The absorber theory is an attempt to explain the radiative reaction force felt by accelerating charged particles. As a particle accelerates, it transfers energy to other surrounding particles through electromagnetic radiation. Now, the crucial issue to understand here is that there is nothing in Maxwell's equations that causes an immediate reaction upon the emitting particle, which means the emitting particle is transferring energy to another particle without losing any bit of its own. This violates one of the most basic experimental observations, the conservation of energy.
Experimentally we do observe that energy is conserved and that the emission of an electromagnetic wave does impart a reaction upon the emitting charge. For example, an electron does descend to lower energy orbits (closer to the nucleus) as it radiates. Wheeler and Feynman, following an insight from Dirac, proposed that the loss of energy is due to the advanced (going back in time) response of the cosmos to the charge's radiation. When the radiation emitted by the original charge reaches the stuff of the universe, it makes it wiggle and emit back a wave that propagates backwards in time towards the original charge. That (back)radiation imparts on the charge a force which robs it of the excess energy it initially radiated (forwards in time).
Since this might be a bit confusing, let me sum it up:
t=0: the charge wiggles
from t=0 to t= 10s.: a retarded electromagnetic wave is emitted and propagates forwards in time away from the charge
t=10s. (for example): a charge 3,000,000 km away from the first charge is put in motion by the electromagnetic wave
from t=10 to t=0s.: the motion of the second charge causes the emission of an advanced electromagnetic wave that propagates back in time away from the second charge
t=0: the advanced wave reaches the first charge and sets it in motion; the total effect caused by all the advanced propagators of all the charges in the future cosmos preserves energy conservation on the original charge and is identical to the observed radiation reaction.
Hope I was clear enough! " By David De Sousa Seixas