Your outrage and bluster doesn't conceal the fact that you've totally evaded the OP, and can't elucidate any flaws. As ever.
The Electromagnetic Field
- Thread starter Farsight
- Start date
Hi Farsight,
What do you mean by "what it is", or "the underlying reality"? We can only observe and predict - there's no special God book that says "and that's what's actually going on". Perhaps you could elaborate?
Pedantry aside, I don't see your point. You've quoted text in reference to your dislike of physicists using vector fields, and I don't see how your reply says anything that suggests vector fields shouldn't be used! In addition, I don't know of any physicist (or anyone with an A-Level in physics) who thinks electricity and magnetism are independent. But this doesn't preclude the use of the term "electric field", which can simply refer to the vector field E(x,t) in Maxwell's equations.
Well, that's a shame. I kind of wanted to go through the first problem I found, but I can't really fathom anything from your post that resolves the issue.
Is this tongue in cheek?
This just sounds like a simplified statement of the Lorentz force. It would usually be considered the operational definition of the electric and magnetic fields.
The right hand rule is just a way of remembering how to calculate vector products.
And it's accurately predicted by QED.
Quantum mechanics also has this one pinned down.
Depends on what you mean by "same nature". What it shows is that a lot of spins added together look like a classical angular momentum, which isn't in conflict with quantum mechanics. One of the consistency requirements placed on QM is that it has to reproduce classical mechanics in the macroscopic regime, and it does. A large, macroscopic "quantum" angular momentum behaves just like a classical one.
As far as the idea of "classical" spin is concerned:
Actually, you could rotate the spin axis in a lot more than just two ways. There's two possible rotations in every plane.
Answer: in this case the magnetic field would alternate between pulling the particles up and down as their spin axes rotated. These alternating pulls would largely cancel each other out and the net result is that the particles would go straight through the magnetic field and form a single spot, with some dispersion depending on how fast the spin axes were rotating. This is assuming you could actually get the "spin axis spinning", which is impossible in classical physics without a sustained force: anything with angular momentum resists having its rotation axis changed. And if it were so easy to change the spin axis, then all the particles would simply align their spin with the magnetic field and they'd all be deflected the same way.
There's nothing in your post to evade since its devoid of any detail. Can you provide one phenomenon you can model accurately with your 'work'? I've been asking you this for years now and you've provided nothing.
There are two kinds of work which are hard to critique. The first are very very advanced papers, which require a great deal of knowledge to spot technical errors. The second kind is the other end of the spectrum, the vacuous nonsense spouted by the profoundly ignorant, because the work lacks any semblance at logic or rigour or detail and thus has nothing you can nail down. And you know this and its part of the reason you don't post equations, you know you'll have any mistake in equations spotted and a clear and unavoidable flaw exposed. By avoiding details you avoid clear cut mistakes. The other reason you don't do any equations is you can't understand even the most basic relevant mathematics.
And its a little silly you accuse me of bluster, you're the one presenting himself as knowledgeable in something you have no actual knowledge of, claiming to have bested the entire world's research community and to be soon 'rewriting textbooks'. I'm not making any such claims about my contributions to science, which I actually have, unlike yourself.
There's nothing in your original post to be outraged about, other than your continued wilful ignorance, which I do dislike in any person not just you.
Typical response from you. Someone disagrees with your delusional claims of grandeur and suddenly this forum is a waste of time. So why do you post? Why did you come back after a long gap, which you took to avoid admitting how hugely your work failed to live up to your claims? You can't turn around and say "This place isn't worth it" after you've put in the time to attempt to convince people you're knowledgeable. You deemed this place as worth your time when you spent time writing up the original post but now people have not agreed with you you're making excuses.
Whose this 'we'? I've got plenty of books on electromagnetism, electrodynamics and quantum electrodynamics, as well as having lecture knows and knowing plenty of other people who have likewise and anything beyond the simplest stuff the electric and magnetic fields are always intertwined. Only in school do you work with 'just' an electric field or 'just' a magnetic field, never considering they are related to one another beyond superficial things like the Lorentz force expression. Anyone working on Maxwell's equations sees they are interdependent and anyone whose done electrodynamics or special relativity will know precisely how they are related to one another, via Lorentz transformations. The reason you're under such a naive misconception is that all you ever look at are basic explanations aimed at people who don't do physics or mathematics. If you bothered to spend the time and effort to read through books covered in university degrees then you'd see you're mistaken and all models employed in the real world of physics have E and B linked together.
I'm not avoiding your original post, there's nothing in there which does anything more than arm wave and post pictures. When you come up with something which (you claim) can model anything in the real world let me know, but given you've ignored this request for more than a year now I doubt you'll be providing it any time soon.
/edit
Just seen Guest said much as I did, only people who never get past high school think electric and magnetic fields are more often than not treated separately. Stop reading pop science books and open something which goes beyond buzzwords and high school physics.
Take a look at the wikipedia explanation for an electric field. It's reasonable, pretty much in-line with what you'd find in a textbook:
In physics, an electric field is a property that describes the space that surrounds electrically charged particles or that which is in the presence of a time-varying magnetic field. This electric field exerts a force on other electrically charged objects. The concept of an electric field was introduced by Michael Faraday.
The electric field is a vector field with SI units of newtons per coulomb (N C−1) or, equivalently, volts per metre (V m−1). The SI base units of the electric field are kg·m·s−3·A−1. The strength of the field at a given point is defined as the force that would be exerted on a positive test charge of +1 coulomb placed at that point; the direction of the field is given by the direction of that force. Electric fields contain electrical energy with energy density proportional to the square of the field amplitude.
It tells you what it does, but it doesn't tell you what it is, or why it exerts a force.
A vector field is describing effect, but not cause. We do physics to understand the world, so it's important to see the distinction between cause and effect, and understand what the electromagnetic field is and not just what it does.
Try to point out where anything in the OP is incorrect, and then if you can't, accept that it isn't.
Not at all. This is good science, but it's been kicked into a trashcan by a "moderator" who permits other threads to be ruined by bad behaviour. The forum has gone seriously downhill since I was previously around, and it's definitely on the way out in terms of physics content.
Operational maybe, but that's rather a "what is does" definition rather than "what it is" explanation. And the wikipedia article on Lorentz force does suggest that separation of the electromagnetic field into two distinct fields. There's only one field there, exerting force in two ways.
It's more than that. Magnetic dipole moment apart, the electron has an electromagnetic field with a spherical disposition. A column of electrons has an electromagnetic field with a cylindrical disposition. If the column of electrons are motionless with respect to a test electron, the latter moves away in a straight line following "electric field lines". If they're not, as in the current in the wire, the test electron also exhibits circular motion around "magnetic field lines". But there's still only one field there, the electromagnetic field. The right-hand-rule is an important clue as to the three-dimensional disposition of the field, leading to Minkowski's wrench and Maxwell's screw.
Granted. But the underlying reality is not explained. Feynman always said this was something of a an issue.
This is the age-old debate concerning quantum mechanics. Try explaining electron magnetic dipole moment in simple terms and you'll hopefully appreciate that it isn't pinned down enough.
OK.
Imagine a geography-class globe that's spinning in the horizontal plane. Now imagine you can give it a similar spin in the vertical plane. A point on the surface of the sphere is now moving round the sphere horizontally and vertically at the same rate. It doesn't matter which "orange segment" vertical plane you pick, the result is the same. If instead of the vertical spin you apply an angled spin, all you're doing is giving the sphere some extra horizontal spin as well as some vertical spin. For spin half, one rate is twice the other.
It's an electromagnetic field. It results in linear motion and/or rotational motion of a test particle. It doesn't actually "pull" a test particle via action-at-a-distance. The test particle is like the doubly-spinning globe in a non-uniform environment which we call an electromagnetic field. When rotational motion is prevalent we call it a magnetic field. If this is uniform as per the interior of a solenoid and we hurl an electron through, it "swerves" continuously to trace a helical path. In the Stern-Gerlach experiment we've got a non-uniform magnetic field, and the electron is part of a silver atom. IMHO it's simpler to move to hydrogen as per Phipps and Taylor in 1927. It was only after this that people realised that the electron itself had spin.
I acknowledged this in the OP, where I refer to electron models employing a double-wrapped 511keV photon in a toroidal configuration. The photon is massless and isn't a point-particle.
The spin axis is spinning, it's constantly changing anyway. You can't align it with the magnetic field. Go back to the globe with horizontal spin. There's two ways of applying the vertical spin. It can be topspin or backspin. Hence some particles go one way, some the other.
There's ample detail.
Yes you are, because you can't elucidate any flaw, and you give your usual diatribe of abuse in an attempt to justify it.
Hi Farsight,
Note the distinction: the observation, and the model. If the model works well, we might be tempted to say the observation is a reflection of the model, but we'd be getting carried away with ourselves. We can't ever say "and that's why nature is the way it is". Do you understand this?
I don't think it's necessary for you to quote wikipedia - I would prefer your own thoughts.
Well yes! Physicists use vector fields to describe observed phenomena. Physicists observe some sort of phenomena, then try to formulate a model that accurately reflects these observations. The model, in this case, utilizes the mathematics of vector fields.
Note the distinction: the observation, and the model. If the model works well, we might be tempted to say the observation is a reflection of the model, but we'd be getting carried away with ourselves. We can't ever say "and that's why nature is the way it is". Do you understand this?
You seem to have become overly defensive - I hope this isn't my fault. I'm simply stuck on one of your very first sentences, and would like you to try to convince me why I shouldn't be stuck. You seem exceptionally confident in what you've written, so I'm sure I'll catch up with you if you help me along!
As an academic, one of the wonderful things I've learnt about research is this: it's not how great you think your work is, but how valuable others deem your work to be. If you don't think this forum can appreciate your thoughts, you could send your work to academic journals instead.
Well I don't see how you're doing any better. Just look at your first two or three posts where you describe the electromagnetic field as a "twist" field and so on. The accuracy of your ideas aside, you're essentially trying to define the electromagnetic field in terms of its action on charged particles, except that the Lorentz force equation already does this quantitatively and much more accurately.
Read a little further down. You really shouldn't be so pedantic about this "the electromagnetic field is one field" business though. What Minkowski did was write Maxwell's equations in the relativistic four-vector notation he developed. In his view, the electromagnetic field is described by a type of geometrical object called a (rank two) antisymmetric tensor. In a given coordinate system, a rank two antisymmetric tensor is specified by six independent components, in the same way a Euclidean vector is specified by three components. Three of those components constitute the "electric field" and behave like an ordinary Euclidean vector under rotations. The remaining three make up the "magnetic field" and behave like the components of an axial vector. Arguing about whether the electromagnetic field is "really" one field or two fields or six fields is like arguing over whether a velocity vector should "really" be considered one quantity or three.
And the "magnetic field lines" circle around the wire. The electron still moves toward or away from the electron column. The direction the magnetic field vector points in is a question of convention and representation. It's actually only "special" in the sense that it's the only direction nothing is happening in.
By the way in case it isn't clear: the dominant contribution to the force on the electron you're describing is still the electric field. In most situations where you have free charges moving around the strength of the "magnetic" effects is of the order of a relativistic correction compared to the "electric" effects and is completely negligible. As a general rule we only really see magnetic effects around materials where the positive and negative charges nearly exactly cancel each other out. For example we can easily measure the magnetic attraction or repulsion between two current carrying wires, but it'd be completely dwarfed by the electrostatic repulsion if just the electrons were there.
For an example related to later points in this post, the magnetic dipole field around an electron is basically insignificant compared to the electrostatic field around it. That's why you've never heard of a version of the Stern-Gerlach experiment that uses free electrons: the magnetic field would just deflect the stream of electrons in a way that's mostly determined by the electron charge and comparatively insensitive to the electron dipole moment.
In QED the origin for pair production is ultimately the same as the Lorentz force on particles: a coupling between the electromagnetic and fermionic matter fields (the "electric charge" is just the strength of the coupling). QED can even give an "explanation" of sorts of "why" the electromagnetic and fermionic fields are coupled in the way they are. I don't understand it well enough to explain it well (properly understanding gauge field theory is one of about a billion things on my "to do" list), but it's actually something of an analogue to the equivalence principle in general relativity. In electrodynamics, the electromagnetic four-potential plays something of the role the space-time metric does in general relativity, and the electromagnetic field appears as an analogue to the curvature.
I hope you're not under the impression that there's some big debate about the validity of quantum mechanics going on in the physics community. Quantum mechanics is "weird" when you first hear about it and some people apparently never get over that, so there are and probably always will be a small minority of physicists looking for an "underlying reality" to it. But for the rest of us it's routine, well established physics and has been for around eighty years.
Depending on what you mean by "simple terms", I don't think that's necessarily a particularly good standard for judging explanations. To pick a nit, the "magnetic dipole moment" bit isn't really difficult or surprising: anything with charge and angular momentum has a magnetic dipole moment, and I think QED can predict the exact relation between the two. So you probably meant to ask for a "simple explanation" of spin.
Well that's the point I was making: which vertical plane? There's more than one. There's a whole family of different ways you can rotate the axis of a rotating globe - not just two.
You're intuitions about what you'll get if you rotate the rotation axis of a spinning globe don't sound very accurate. The type of motion you're describing is called precession and is already quite well studied. Incidentally, we already know how to use magnetic fields to get the electron spin axis to align one way, or to precess. It's used in NMR for example. I hope you're aware that what you're trying to use as the basis of an "underlying" explanation for spin is something we already know how to manipulate experimentally.
Why are you telling me this and how does it answer the quote you were replying to?
That doesn't automatically follow.
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Then why is it you can't point me to a single thing in the real world you can actually model? That is detail. If I want a superficial summary of some area of physics I'll read excellent books like 'The Road to Reality' by Penrose, who does a much much better job of explaining things than you, has better pictures and, most importantly, knows WTF he's talking about. I trust Penrose to explain the concept of twistors to me because he invented them and has published vast amounts in reputable peer reviewed journals, demonstrating he's got the detail to back up his words if anyone wants to know more. I've repeatedly asked you to provide more and you can't come up with anything. After more than a year. Possibly two! I know your naivety about real physics means you think that 'detail' is providing pictures but that doesn't mean by providing pictures you've met even the most basic of requirements to 'do' physics. You have words without substance, pictures without detail, explanations without understanding.
People who are big players in physics write pop science books after they have done the details. They first convince other physicists they have done something worthwhile and once its widely accepted and something laypersons might be interested in then they strip out the details, add in some pictures and publish a pop science book. You have never seen any of the detailed work and so you don't realise how far short you fall. You're someone who puts on a lab coat and wonders why he's not taken seriously by scientists. You are engaging in cargo cult science, doing the superficial things which are associated with science in the mind of a layperson but failing to do the actual science which is the reason people in lab coats get taken seriously. Less style, a bit more substance please.
Are you still trying this, despite having your work turned down by every single reputable journal you sent it to and by every forum where people with actual science degrees post?
Besides, simply not being proven wrong doesn't mean you're right. I can't prove that God doesn't exist but this is not the same as someone else proving he does. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, you're trying to convince yourself that if no one goes through your work and explains errors then there are none. In the past people have gone through your work and you failed to acknowledge any real critique. How many times did I try to engage you in discussion on the difference between mathematical axiom and physical postulate? You never acknowledged you were confusing the two, despite my repeated honest attempts to discuss them with you.
Don't confuse the fact that people think your work so laughably rubbish as not worth the time with people being unable to refute it. If you can demonstrate you're open to honest discussion I'll happily discuss it with you. And to do that you need to only provide me with just one phenomenon in the real world you can model with your work and demonstrate as much. Just one.
He didn't, he originally posted it in the main forum but it got moved here due to being devoid of anything worthwhile.
And its not like I'm picking on some newbie, Farsight and I first crossed paths several years ago and clashed horns a great many times. I am somewhat vitriolic and insulting to him because I know full well he's got no intention to be honest or has anything worthwhile in his work.
Farsight started this thread, not anyone else. Prior to starting it he'd been in another thread making claims about quantum electrodynamics which were wrong and despite him never having done anything even remotely like it he was arguing he understood it. He invites these kinds of responses by making claims he can't back up. And this isn't confined to his forum, he has posted threads like this on a great many forums in order to advertise his 'work' which he claimed (and still claims) would rewrite the textbooks. After being laughed off more than half a dozen forums for providing no actual physics in his work and also being rejected from any and all reputable journals he spent money on vanity publishing.
He digs his own holes, repeatedly. The criticisms I've made here I'd made to his previous 'work', criticisms which he got given on every forum he posted his 'work' on. Criticisms he couldn't, hasn't and no doubt will not address. He can't be 'afraid of persecution' because he truly and honestly believes he's going something viable and scientific, no matter how many people point out that is not the case. I've tried to engage him in honest and open discussion on such things as the distinction between mathematical axioms and physical postulates or discuss one phenomenon he can actually model, all to no avail.
He posts his work, I don't force him. If he wants to be taken seriously he's got to be willing to listen to criticism and be willing to accept when he's incorrect or naive. Scientists are taken seriously because of knowledge, results, peer review and the ability to self correct via the scientific method, not because they use big words. Farsight thinks that if he uses buzzwords he'll be taken seriously. He wasn't, isn't and won't be, short of some quantum leap in his attitude.
Noted.
Yes. But I think one should not discount the possibility of a better model.
You have been most polite, guest254. Any seeming defensiveness on my part isn't anything to do with anything you've said. I don't feel defensive, instead I feel confident.
I tried that for a year. I'm afraid the response was similar to the response here. One journal that sticks in my mind was Foundations of Physics, who printed this: http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646
Most definitely - but I don't see any model. But perhaps I've missed it: what does your model "model", so to speak!? A classic example would be: what does your model predict for the perihelion advance of Mercury?
I'm glad. To go back to the point in hand though: you've still not done anything to convince me that there's anything wrong with physicists using vector fields in electromagnetism (or any other equivalent mathematical description).
Perhaps you might take that as an indication that your confidence could be *a little* misplaced? I'm all for people having a crack at physics, but it's a big and difficult subject and it takes a long, long time and a lot of hard work to get to the stage where you can competently talk about modern theories.
Did you take anything constructive from the replies you received from journals?
Sorry przyk, but I'm not. I'm trying to describe the electromagnetic field in terms of spatial geometry.
I'm familiar with this. I rather stress the point about the electromagnetic field being a single field because I see so much commentary that treats them as separate, and it seems to seep through into conceptual thinking.
I beg to differ. I think this is crucial. It's the electromagnetic field. Until you really appreciate this you can't envisage "the geometrical entity" as per the OP.
No problem. I showed the magnetic field lines in the OP, and your response was to:
A column of electrons has an electromagnetic field with a cylindrical disposition. If the column of electrons are motionless with respect to a test electron, the latter moves away in a straight line following "electric field lines". If they're not, as in the current in the wire, the test electron also exhibits circular motion around "magnetic field lines".
Good point. Yes, of course, we see a magnetic field around a bar of iron where net positive and negative charge is essentially zero. I'll strengthen that "also" with this for next time.
Yes, no issue. I did say "magnetic dipole moment apart". I'm aware it's a very small effect.
I didn't appreciate that, but I was vaguely wondering about the move to hydrogen but not to an electron beam. Thanks.
Interesting. You'll note in the OP that I say it's curved space as opposed to curved spacetime.
Not at all. The big debate is about the interpretation. It has rumbled on and on.
We'll have to agree to differ on this, pryzk, but you're wrong to think this "weird" routine will continue.
I meant it when I said magnetic dipole moment. The electron isn't a charge "going round in a circle". It's something else going round in a circle, and the result is a charge. But I take your point, there isn't a good standard for judging explanations.
And it doesn't matter at all which vertical plane you pick. The result is the same.
I'm not describing precession. I have an electric gyroscope here on the desk in front of me. I've just spun it up, and the "angular mass" resists my attempts to apply a vertical rotation. Now it's slowing down, and starting to precess.
I'm not. I used the doubly-spinning globe analogy for an electron, and mentioned hydrogen. One can consider the electron and proton as two spinning globes in close proximity. Turn one upside down, and the spins are now antiparallel. You've performed a hyperfine transition, which is used in atomic clocks such as the NIST caesium fountain clocks. NMR is something similar.
To try to clarify the point. It's an electromagnetic field, a geometrical entity, not a magnetic field that "pulls". The motion is the result of spin interactions in space.
Granted, but try kicking some footballs, and try the Falaco solitons. I know analogies can be "dangerous", but I really do think they can help.
Thanks again for your sincerity.
You still can't find any flaws.
Not me. You're the string theorist.
I posted this in the science section in response to matters arising on another thread. Alphanumeric has always been vitriolic. He's never been able to point out any flaws in this or related threads here or anywhere else, and at no point has he demonstrated any sincerity or honest engagement.
It isn't really "my" model. All I've done is pull together information from a variety of sources to present an overview that appears to be coherent and that I hope will prove useful.
I don't know. I've never tried to come up with any such prediction. My working title is relativity+, and I've never considered myself to be challenging general relativity. Some have demanded that I give a prediction for the perihelion advance of mercury, but since doing so would consume a great deal of my time and doubtless yield the GR result, I've discounted such demands as diversionary tactics intended only to distract from the evidence and references I've already shown.
There's nothing wrong in physicists using vector fields per se. But please read the OP. I portray the geometry of the electromagnetic field, and explain that the vector fields describe the resultant linear or rotational motion, not the electromagnetic field itself. Whilst some physicists are quite aware of the distinction, in my experience some confuse cause and effect, such as "moving through an electric field generates a magnetic field". IMHO the result can be a conceptual shift wherein two distinct fields supplant the dualism of the underlying field. I think this is wrong.
When my paper is rejected by an editor who publishes a paper that says "the universe is made of mathematics", I don't feel that my confidence is misplaced.
Yes. But it was thin pickings. Constructive comment was rather thin on the ground.
I don't really think it's a model at all to be honest. But I'm happy for you to try to change my opinion!
OK, let me rephrase the question. Is your model capable of forming a precise prediction for the perihelion advance of mercury? And to pre-empt possible answers:
1) If yes, could you indicate which equations from your model should be used. If you don't want to do the computation, that's fine - I'll have a go. But I need a place to start. I want a numerical prediction, so I'm going to need some equations.
2) If no, then ok. But then your model doesn't model gravity.
Geometry! Excellent, I absolutely love geometry - but I fail to see any in your post. Could you highlight the parts of the OP where you have used results from geometry? This would actually help matters immensely, because it means you'll have to invoke some mathematics, which in turn will inject a little precision.
That sounds very much like arrogance, and I don't think that type of attitude will help you.