[Colin2B]

Electrical signals in wires don't travel at c.

They typically travel at about 2/3c; the exact speed depends on the geometry, construction and materials of the wire and its insulation.

What's the physics of that, @evan_au ?

I think @evan_au is busy at moment.
Any pair of wires will have resistance, but also inductance and capacitance so will act like an LRC network limiting the build up of voltage & current and limiting the propagation velocity. The properties of the wire and insulation will affect these properties eg the type of insulation will affect the capacitance.

This topic would be quite interesting, but it is a jumble of partial facts and confused thinking  that makes it too time consuming to respond on every item. Pity, best left to it's own devices.

[mad aetherist (OP)]

This topic is mainly the papers & videos by Catt & Bishop & the experiment by Wakefield (see earlier links).
My postings-wordage are just snippets of info gleaned from Catt & Co as i understand them (which i dont)(but i am learning).  Readers will be able to form an opinion re any partial facts & confused thinking. 

The main confusion in this thread is re Westerners' inability to see that electrons cant transmit any sort of current-pulse at the speed of light. See #2 where i quote some wordage from Colin2B (that Colin made on 26 Oct 2018 on another thread where i first mentioned Catt's theory) -- Colin says that electrons can transmit a pulse at c, & Colin mentions marbles in a tube -- & see my anti-Westerner wordage in #8 & #19.

And this topic (re the fact that electric currents do not exist in circuits)(& electrical energy travels outside the copper, not inside) is i reckon one of the top say ten interesting physics topics that u might ever see re the nature of gravity light radiation & matter.  This topic relates to electricity being radiation. My pet area is re radiation being photaenos (which emanate from photons).

Re videos, the following link has two videos by Catt, the main one is 111 minutes long & the question time one is 52 minutes long. The videos provide a fair amount of info missing i think from the writings. Unfortunately the videos are of poor quality, & in addition Catt must be the worst speaker-presenter u will ever hear-see. But bear in mind that this is the first time that he has presented much of that stuff. And has only a small amount of experience as a teacher etc (teaching remedial English). 
Unlike the continual barrage of propaganda that we face daily from ignorant sophists paid to spout the science mafia's Einsteinian etc krapp.
Anyhow, it is worth the trouble (lots of it) of watching the videos, i saw some some gems in there.
http://async.org.uk/IvorCatt+DavidWalton.html

[mad aetherist (OP)]

Re the confusion of Westerners (including Colin2B) re their insane belief that electron's have a magical ability to transmit a pulse at c, here below is some sane wordage by Lynch & Catt from #10.

A DIFFICULTY IN ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY by Arnold Lynch and Ivor Catt
...........One of us sent the problem to various people who might have been expected to provide an answer, and the responses were mainly of two kinds (ref. 1):
(1) that the wave causes radial movements in the line as it passes over them, and that electrons displaced in this way at the far end make up the current; or
(2) that electrons move along the line, with velocity less than the wave, but push other electrons on in front of them, keeping pace with the wave.

This problem was mentioned in the Institution's Wheatstone Lecture last December. The lecturer said that electrons in a metal travel only slowly but that they can transmit a fast electromagnetic wave by "nudging" their neighbors ("nudging" was his word for it).  Our comments on this are: each atom in a metal contributes a few free electrons, so there are rather more electrons than atoms and therefore they are spaced from each other by a little less than the spacing of the atoms - say about a tenth of a nanometre. The size of an electron is not known, but it is presumably much smaller than an atomic nucleus, which is about a millionth of a nanometre. That is, the electrons are spaced apart by more than 100,000 times their diameter. So they cannot deliver a nudge without moving, and they cannot move instantaneously because of their mass.

[mad aetherist (OP)]

I will return to Catt at a later date, i havent finished with him just yet.
But today i want to add that Catt uses-recommends a certain procedure for his brand of tests --  he uses two 1 mega ohm resistors at the battery so that the capacitor is trickle charged. I think that this ensures that the Heaviside wave bouncing back & forth in each half of the capacitor is a nice uniform wave (ie just before u close the switch)(ie just before u prove that electric current is a krapp notion).

[Colin2B]

Re the confusion of Westerners (including Colin2B) re their insane belief that electron's have a magical ability to transmit a pulse at c,

You are misrepresenting my views. I don’t believe that electrons transmit a pulse at c in a cable, and I don’t know of other physicists who believe it either.
You are probably misunderstanding my analogy of marbles in a tube which was to illustrate that individual electrons don’t need to travel from one end of a wire to the other. The speed at which the marbles exit is the same as the speed you push them in, which if they are perfectly rigid is as slow as you like and any speed up to that of c.  By the way, shape makes no difference.

... each atom in a metal contributes a few free electrons, so there are rather more electrons than atoms and therefore they are spaced from each other by a little less than the spacing of the atoms - say about a tenth of a nanometre. The size of an electron is not known, but it is presumably much smaller than an atomic nucleus, which is about a millionth of a nanometre. That is, the electrons are spaced apart by more than 100,000 times their diameter. So they cannot deliver a nudge without moving, and they cannot move instantaneously because of their mass.

This argument is silly. You could use the same argument to suggest that atomic spacing means you can’t transmit sound through a solid and that the Sun can’t have an effect on the orbit of Saturn.  Also they don’t have to move instantaneously in order to generate an em field.
In a crt there is a beam of electrons. They are spaced further apart than in copper, but left to it’s own devices the beam will diverge due to the electrons pushing each other apart.

This whole thread is based on a silly set of misunderstandings and false assumptions.

[mad aetherist (OP)]

Re the confusion of Westerners (including Colin2B) re their insane belief that electron's have a magical ability to transmit a pulse at c,

You are misrepresenting my views. I don’t believe that electrons transmit a pulse at c in a cable, and I don’t know of other physicists who believe it either.

But if an electronic pulse doesnt travel at c then that leaves only the Catt idea of the pulse being due to the Heaviside wave (ie an em wave).

You are probably misunderstanding my analogy of marbles in a tube which was to illustrate that individual electrons don’t need to travel from one end of a wire to the other. The speed at which the marbles exit is the same as the speed you push them in, which if they are perfectly rigid is as slow as you like and any speed up to that of c.

Yes i agree that once equilibrium has been established the exit rate is equal to the entry rate -- but here the crux of the issue is that equilibrium will take time.  Once equilibrium has been established a marble might be exiting at exactly the same instant that a marble is entering but that doesnt mean that there is a connection, the marble exiting might be doing so under the influence of a marble that entered 2 or 3 marbles earlier.

By the way, shape makes no difference.

If the marbles are pressed forcefully together then i think that the sound wave going along would be almost as fast & efficient as in solid glass.  But if the marbles are gently touching then there might be a very very weak sound wave getting throo at fast speed, but the forceful wave would be trailing far behind.
If the tube is filled with electrons shoulder to shoulder, or even with large gaps, the initial movement of the first electron will create a pulse that travels the full length of the tube at c, but this pulse will be very weak -- the full force of the pulse travelling electron to electron along the tube will travel much slower than c.

... each atom in a metal contributes a few free electrons, so there are rather more electrons than atoms and therefore they are spaced from each other by a little less than the spacing of the atoms - say about a tenth of a nanometre. The size of an electron is not known, but it is presumably much smaller than an atomic nucleus, which is about a millionth of a nanometre. That is, the electrons are spaced apart by more than 100,000 times their diameter. So they cannot deliver a nudge without moving, and they cannot move instantaneously because of their mass.

This argument is silly. You could use the same argument to suggest that atomic spacing means you can’t transmit sound through a solid and that the Sun can’t have an effect on the orbit of Saturn.  Also they don’t have to move instantaneously in order to generate an em field.

I dont agree with thems analogies. But i do admit that the notion of free electron spacing might be wrong -- i am thinking that there is no need to think of free electrons at all -- every electron is a free electron -- in which case the spacing is much less than 100,000 electron diameters -- & if u take that one step further & consider that every electron is in a way non-free but in an orbit of sorts then that must add "rigidity" to the whole train -- but in the end the pulse cant ever reach c anyhow.  In trying to think of something that might help Westerners' argument, there is evidence that at short range an electric field can travel at up to 5c (but i dont think that even this is enuff here).

In a crt there is a beam of electrons. They are spaced further apart than in copper, but left to it’s own devices the beam will diverge due to the electrons pushing each other apart.

I am thinking that if the beam is travelling at c/10 & if the divergence is say 1 in 20 then the speed of divergence is say c/200 & the divergence might result in a transverse em pulse but this pulse might travel at ony c/200.

This whole thread is based on a silly set of misunderstandings and false assumptions.

I saw a paper that mentioned that Hertz gave up doing em field tests because he kept getting instantaneous action at a distance.  http://www.pandualism.com/d/instantaneous.html
Heaviside wave theory gives a psuedo semi-IAAAD, because the Heaviside wave is travelling at c at all times, it is never static, there is no such thing as a static field (in an electric circuit).
20dec2018: When the switch is closed there is already a part of the HW at that point, & instead of reflecting at the open switch it finds that it can continue, immediately, instantaneously, hencely it is not action at a distance, it is action at zero distance, thats why the "psuedo".  And of course there is a similar HW on the far side of the switch doing the same thing.
The "semi" is because each HW is due to its own half of the capacitor, hencely each HW is half strength, hencely the full strength of the capacitor is not initially evident, it takes time for the two halves to team up & give the final full result, the time i think depending on the length of the circuit & the speed of light in the surrounding medium.

[mad aetherist (OP)]

Does Faraday Allow Superposition? -  Ivor Catt --  2011.
http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x164npa.pdf

............... A difficulty has remained unnoticed for more than seventy years, and unnoticed by me for forty years.  This is that Oersted assumes a single electric current around a loop creating a single magnetic field within the loop. 
It does not allow two electric currents in opposite directions each creating its own magnetic field, which is what we see here in the passive line.  Further, even before Oersted, classical theory does not allow two electric currents in opposite directions down a single wire.
It is helpful to look at the case of surface conductors, Fig. 10, where the two modes resulting from the injection of a single voltage spike travel at different velocities, and separate out, see Figs. 10 and 11.  The signal arriving first further down the line is the Odd Mode, because more of it travels in the faster air than the slower Even Mode, more of which travels in the slower epoxy glass. Fig. 9..........

[mad aetherist (OP)]

Dear Mr. Ivor Catt,
As chairman of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society committee on Microwave Field Theory, MTT-15, I have been asked to respond to your request to Dr. John Powers, Executive Director, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
I reviewed the previous responses you received from Professor M. Pepper and Neil McEwan. I am in general agreement with their assessment of the "Catt Anomaly".

I will limit my comments to the region of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to "microwave" frequencies. Hence, the wavelength of electromagnetic waves are very much greater that the atomic and hence, electron spacing in a good conductor. Our, view is one of looking at the macroscopic effects, not microscopic.

Conductors are material whose atomic outer shell (valence) electronics are not held very tightly and can migrate from one atom to another.  These are known free electrons and for metal conductors they are very large in number. Assuming, one valence electron per atom, then the number of free electrons equals the number of atoms in the material since the material maintains charge neutrality.  Hence, we have a "sea" of electrons in the metal.  With no applied external field, these free electrons move with different velocities in random directions producing zero net current through the conductor.  If an electric field is applied, there is a net migration of electrons parallel to the electric field, hence current flows. 

However, if we consider individual electrons, when an electron is added at one end of a structure (e.g. a transmission line), one leaves the other end of the structure and charge neutrality is maintained.  If we tag the entering electron, we find that it is not the electron that leaves the structure.  The electron that leaves, is one that was already near the output and was forced out by the addition of an electron at the input.
This is the same phenomenon that we see in fluid flow. When a liquid flows through a pipe, adding a droplet of fluid at the input of the pipe causes an immediate expulsion of a droplet of fluid from the output of the pipe, however, it is not the same droplet. 
When viewed from the input and output the system exhibits a finite yet extremely fast response time, however, the time required for any given droplet to propagate through the system is much longer than the input/output system response time.

Back, to the electrical problem, when a free charge is first placed inside a conductor it is subjected to a static field, the charge density at that point then decays exponentially until the static electric field in the conductor goes to zero. The time constant of that exponential decay is known at the "relaxation time constant", tr. For conductors, such as copper that time constant is of the order 10^-19 sec. This time constant is much shorter that the period of a microwave signal, therefore, we can consider the electrons to always be is a state of equilibrium in the material.

Concerning, the question of charges terminating electric fields incident upon the conductors. With no applied electric field, free electrons on average are positioned in the conductor to exactly compensate for the positive charge of the nucleus of the atoms making up the material.  When an electric field is applied, the electrons, on average move so that the total electric field inside of the material remains at zero. (Ei + Ea = 0). Where Ei is the field within the conductor due to slight net movement of the electrons relative to the fixed atom position.  This results in a polarization of the atoms. 

The distances that any individual electron has to move is extremely small because of the collective effects of many electrons involved and occurs within a period equal to a few relaxation time constants.  Ea is the applied field. The net effect of all this is that, a equivalent surface charge appears which terminates the applied electric field.  Since the displacement of any individual electron is small, it can follow a rapidly changing electric field as discussed in the Catt Anomaly description.

In conclusion, from the microwave point of view, which is macroscopic, the so called "Catt Anomaly" is well understood and does not play a role.
Sincerely        James W. Mink Ph.D.      Chairman MTT-15 (IEEE)  Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University       16nov95

[mad aetherist (OP)]

http://www.naturalphilosophy.org/site/harryricker/2015/12/12/the-wakefield-experiments-background-and-motivation/

By the 1930s the last remaining vestiges of the aether had been removed from the engineering textbooks as well as the physics curriculum. During this period, the rapid advances of electronics, seemed to confirm the electron theory of current, although there were some areas of divergence. The theory of transmission lines and electromagnetic waves became the province of the electrical power transmission, communication, and radio engineers. These technologists were not interested in developing physical theory, but were concerned with implementing new technologies.

This explains why in the textbook Principles of Electric Power Transmission by L.F. Woodruff, we find that there is a photograph of an oscillogram of the building up of a charge on a transmission line. The picture shows the line charging up in steps exactly in accordance with Theory C of Ivor Catt.

 However, the interpretation given this experimental result, is not consistent with Theory C , but with the old theory that the results are due to traveling waves of voltage and current. This approach sees the current and voltage waves as completely different phenomena and so the opportunity to develop Theory C was missed.

[mad aetherist (OP)]

I saw a paper that mentioned that Hertz gave up doing em field tests because he kept getting instantaneous action at a distance.  http://www.pandualism.com/d/instantaneous.html
Heaviside wave theory gives a psuedo semi-IAAAD, because the Heaviside wave is travelling at c at all times, it is never static, there is no such thing as a static field (in an electric circuit).
20dec2018: When the switch is closed there is already a part of the HW at that point, & instead of reflecting at the open switch it finds that it can continue, immediately, instantaneously, hencely it is not action at a distance, it is action at zero distance, thats why the "psuedo".  And of course there is a similar HW on the far side of the switch doing the same thing. The "semi" is because each HW is due to its own half of the capacitor, hencely each HW is half strength, hencely the full strength of the capacitor is not initially evident, it takes time for the two halves to team up & give the final full result, the time i think depending on the length of the circuit & the speed of light in the surrounding medium.

This week i discovered an experiment re IAAAD that i now carry out ever day in my kitchen. 
U need one toaster & four slices of cheap white sliced bread (99 cents per loaf)(dont use wholegrain)(& dont buy toasting slices, buy the thin sandwich slices).
Most eaters would (1) put 2 cold slices in the toaster, (2) pull down the lever, & (3) wait a few minutes until (4) the toast popped up, & then (5) extract the 2 toasted slices.
But what i now do is i go straight to (5), then (1), then (2).  (3) & (4) can be ignored.
This way i get instantaneous toast every time.  The speed of the current etc is i suppose in effect instantaneous, ie a kind of IAAAD, or pseudo-IAAAD i suppose.

I put sardines & onion on my toast, for lunch (i live alone). Now all i need to do is to work out a way of saving time re opening a can of sardines. There has to be a way of making it in effect instantaneous.  Get the 69 cent cans. In tomato sauce is ok (or in vegie oil, or in brine)(same price). Slicing the onion (69 cents per kg for brown onion) takes time too.  Thinking.

[mad aetherist (OP)]

Erik Margan – The Heaviside's Experiment -- http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x726.pdf
Margan performs a small experiment & gets the same results as Catt got & as Wakefield got (see #6), showing that the electrical energy flows outside conductors & is not produced by a flow of electrons in conductors.  And static charge & static magnetism etc are due to the superposition of two equal energy currents allways moving at c/n.
Margan calls modern water pipe analogies re electricity "plumber's electricity".

However Margan & Catt & Wakefield & Co all think that the em fields & energy currents are carried by photons. 
No, em fields are due to & carried by the photaenos emitted by free photons & by confined photons (eg electrons).