81

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« on: 03/01/2015 15:05:13 »

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

82

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« on: 01/01/2015 16:16:10 »

Hi, John D,

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. 
   

83

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« on: 22/12/2014 16:44:17 »

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.

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.

     

84

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« on: 30/11/2014 19:03:52 »

Hi, John D,

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

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.

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.

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'?

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.

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'.

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

85

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« 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

86

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« on: 26/11/2014 22:08:15 »

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.

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.

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.   








 

87

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« 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?   
 

88

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is time irrelevant?

« on: 14/11/2014 18:40:53 »

Do we have any concrete evidence that time is quantized?  I think not.

Do we have any concrete evidence that Planck’s time cannot be divided?  Not that I am aware of.

Can we measure an interval as small as Planck’s time?  Not with our present instruments.

Is "Planck time [is] truly the shortest length of time possible."  We don’t know (yet).

These comments equally apply to length and dimensions.

89

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is time irrelevant?

« on: 13/11/2014 20:05:17 »

If you want to take out the concept of 'time dilation', you have to take on Einstein's theory of special relativity.

90

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is time irrelevant?

« on: 12/11/2014 22:23:00 »

I'm a 'Yes' man, Jeff. I think that the concept of 'universal sequential change' is much more relevant than the concept of 'time', when it comes to understanding our Universe.

Time is arguably the most powerful concept that we have today, but it is a concept rooted firmly in our human psyche, explaining periodic events such as: birth and death, night and day, winter and summer and movement from place to place.

Through the centuries, we have gained the ability to measure time more and more accurately, using objects with a periodic motion, such as the quartz crystal which vibrates under an applied voltage or the microwave emissions from the caesium atom. But why is 'periodic motion' so fundamental to the physics of the Universe!  Clocks are just physical entities, like any other.

If you wished to argue for the retention of the concept of time, you may point out that without 'time' all the past and future events would kaleidoscope, time being the axis upon which all events are plotted.  However, by perceiving universal change as occurring in a sequential manner for all matter and radiant energy simultaneously, then the order of events in the Universe is maintained.  It is this, that is the true reality and time is just a human invention to manage the process of change more effectively.  Put another way, you can detect change, but you cannot detect the passage of time.

So take a minute to think about this. How did an inanimate object such as our universe, acquire the concept of time and time intervals? And if it could, did it require the concept to create all the elements of the Periodic Table which make up the content of our Universe? If you come to the conclusion that an inanimate object couldn't conceive of time, then you must accept that time and time intervals are just a human concept, which we've invented to manage the processes of change that we initiate and those forced upon us, in a more effective manner.

If we abandon the concept of time from our thinking, then how do we view the ongoing changes which we see about us every second of the day.  The main observation that we can make is that change happens in a sequential fashion and cannot be erased or reversed. For example, if you walk across a field of grass and back again, the future for the grass that you have crushed underfoot will never be the same again. Everything lives by observing or sensing the changes that are happening in the world around them.

Accepting the idea that time doesn't exist, means giving up the notion of beginnings and ends. So, viewing the Universe through the concept of 'sequential universal change', leads to the realisation that the Universe has had no beginning and has no end, it just changes form continuously in a discrete manner, however many "big bangs" that might be. But this is not to say that time and time intervals is not a brilliant human invention and a valuable tool in ordering past events. Just be aware of thinking of it as a real physical quantity. It isn't.

91

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: The electron's electrostatic field.

« 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?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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

92

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: The electron's electrostatic field.

« 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.
 

93

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How can electrons constantly emit an electric field?

« 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?

94

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Polarisation of visible light.

« on: 25/10/2014 16:13:19 »

Thanks, ChiralSPO. The conclusion that can be drawn from your post, is that the magnetic field vector is as important as the electric field vector for the propagation of light.

Thanks also evan_au. I never figured out why the axis of transmission of a polariser was at right angles to the 'vertical slots'. Now I do.

However, if the magnetic and electric field vectors are of equal magnitude and importance, it must be possible, in concept, to create a polariser from a transparent diamagnetic or paramagnetic material, rather than just the transparent electrically conducting ones that exist. Its likely, though, that the electrically active polarisers are easier and cheaper to manufacture, but there could be a gap in the market for a magnetic one!

A final quote from Wikipedia on the subject.

"Faraday discovered that when a plane polarized ray traverses a transparent diamagnetic medium in the direction of the lines of magnetic force produced by magnets or currents in the neighbourhood, the plane of polarization is caused to rotate."

Thanks to you both again. As regards my original question, my understanding now is that the answer lies in the atomic structure of the polariser.

95

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Polarisation of visible light.

« on: 24/10/2014 19:37:15 »

Thanks for your replies. Hi, PmbPhy. I have only been considering Linear polarisation. The now obvious insight that you've given me (thanks) is that a single photon of light is, by definition, polarised. Four of the references you gave me, show the photon as an electric vector and a magnetic vector in phase, but functioning at right angles to each other and to their direction of travel. So if this photon of visible light is incident upon a polariser with its electric vector orientated in such a way that it will pass through the polarising material, how does the magnetic vector also pass through, being at right angles to the polarising axis and hence presumably blocked.

I can only see three possibilities. Firstly that the polarising material does not interact with a magnetic field and hence lets the photon through. Secondly, that a photon can only pass through a polariser, if its magnetic vector is zero. Thirdly, that a photon does not have a magnetic vector.

Hi, chiralSPO. Thanks for your post too. I picked up upon your statement that the electric and magnetic vectors of a photon are not in phase, but a quarter wavelength out of phase with each other. It made sense to me that the magnetic vector followed the electric vector. However, the standard diagrams I'd seen for the photon showed them to be in phase, peaking at the same time. Are these illustrative diagrams for linear polarisation misleading? (See references 1 to 4 of PmbPhy post.)



     

96

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Polarisation of visible light.

« on: 23/10/2014 17:59:42 »

Thanks for your explanation. I've always understood that the electric sine wave and the magnetic sine wave, though peaking at the same time, vibrate in different planes. One is in the XY plane and the other in the XZ plane. There are any number of diagrams published showing this. Hence my question.

If I've understood your reply correctly, both vibrate in the XY plane, either side of the direction of travel along the X axis. This certainly explains polarisation.

But why are so many diagrams incorrect? Have I still misunderstood your explanation?


 

97

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Polarisation of visible light.

« on: 23/10/2014 12:39:01 »

When visible light is polarised into a single plane, which of its orthogonal electric and magnetic components is eliminated?