Which Came First? — D. Scott

[jjohnson]

Precisely. And while charged particle flows are composed of real entities, the fields within and around them are fields - constructs we have to represent things we observe to happen in a causal analysis.

I love the idea and convenience of fields, but have no idea how or why they work. It's as if the field is like an all-pervasive memory built into the fabric of the Universe, in which changes large and small propagate as perturbations at the speed of light. Whether or not the fabric of field is quantized and granular or continuous is another mystery, but at our scale and technological capability we can still only speculate about that, as James Sung does in his books.

Things are changing, but slowly. Another thread linked to a recent paper (Measurement of the Electric Current in a Kpc-scale Jet, Kronberg et al, arXiv:1106.1397v1 7 June 2011), This article is quite explicit, and presents very pointed references to prior research and use of familiar analytic methods like Faraday rotational motion and Poynting flux, and straightforward explanations of current collimation through counterflow current repulsion and toroidal attraction, which cannot help but make electric currents in space just that much more obvious to today's astronomers (assuming they read arXiv or New Scientist occasionally).

It is no accident, in my opinion, that two of the authors (Kronberg and Colgate) are from Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, USA, and the other two come from (1) a Department of AStronomy and Applied and Engineering Physics (Lovelace), and (2) a Centre for Plasma Astrophysics (Lapenta). This is an absorbing and practical article by authors who call it like it is. I like to see words like "applied" and "plasma astrophysics" and "engineering" in the authors and references section of papers on astronomical studies. This is how the ideas and interpretations of the EU paradigm are being made real in the world of science today.

Thanks, Don.

Jim

[mharratsc]

So for many years we've listened to the likes of Tom Bridgeman tell plasma physicists that they needed to stick with their laboratory experiments and let the astronomers deal with astrophysical phenomenon. Is it now time to state that the shoe is now officially on the other foot then? o.O

[Sparky]

In all my research and theorizing, I have always insisted on a mechanical explanation. I do not allow dodges into field lines or pluses and minuses. And I have forbidden myself the luxury of attractions, since attractions are non-mechanical. Most of my work up to now has been on gravity or on charge, and I have had a good deal of success redefining those fields mechanically. I have also made some first steps in explaining the magnetic field as a force produced by the spin on photons. But I have not yet gotten around to answering the question in my title here. Magnetism causes an apparent attraction, just like gravity. How can I explain that mechanically, without attraction?

More at= link

[jjohnson]

Ya just gotta love Miles! I wrote him a note about Ian Sefton's paper a while back and he said he'd think about it and write his own interpretation of how circuits really work. Here is that response.

He is quite the mechanic, as indicated above by his magnetic conundrum. Well, the 'verse looks pretty mechanical to me, too, and causal, to boot, but some of Miles's mechanical theories defy me to understand them completely, or to work them, in the case of his charge field model where gravity and charge work together to modulate orbital trajectories in 2+ - body trajectories. To his credit, he is always original and never uninteresting, and calls a spade a spade in the way he sees his critics. By the way, he's announced that he has another book coming out in several months.

Jim

[jjohnson]

Hi, Mike,
I think it's okay for us to stop listening to Mssr. Bridgeman and his dismissive rants, now. We are all grownups and peers of the realm, not his subjects or servants. Just tell me which part of his anatomy you wish to receive the well-placed boot... —or Taser; your choice!


Jim

[Sparky]

Jim, thanks for the link back to miles' paper....

I have some issues with their understanding of electricity...

Photons are suppose to pretty much travel in a straight line.

Most electrical circuits that i know of are not straight lines.

In fact, some are quite intricate.

How do the photons travel these circuitous routes?

The bumpity bump of electrons within the wire makes more sense.

I would even accept the bumpity bump of photons between those electrons.

But, something is pushing electrons out of the electrode on an arc welder, and in a way that corresponds to ohms law.

Maybe i don't understand "energy". Maybe they are too caught up in the abstract..

[jjohnson]

Sparky,
I don't think that Miles quite got the Poynting vector thing, but as it doesn't use photons as messengers of energy, he is not impressed.
Poynting's vectors are almost entrancing. They merely say where and how much energy is being transmitted (moved through a small area) in the EM field surrounding an electrical circuit, as well as in other applications. Those include calculating the energy transmission paths inside dielectrics in coaxial microwave power lines and antennas, and in the diagrams of the flow of "light" — or EM energy — in lens diagrams. This includes lenses and mirrors as optical components in mirrors, including x-ray and radio and infrared optics, as well, down to the nano-lenses used in fiber optic cable couplers. Just google images for Poynting vectors and look at the many useful engineering applications and software that employ's Poynting's model from 1884 and 1885.

Photons can readily be coerced into moving in curved paths. The path of a wavefront through a lens follows a curve, as the thickness of the lens varies across the span of the wavefront. It is possible to build lenses with two or more types of glass, carefully fitted together, or even melted together altho that's messy and unreliable, with different speeds of light, or a gradient in c, which forces curved paths. It seems that light might be "bent" into a curved path as it moves into and out of a strong gravitational field of a star like our Sun [through a gravity gradient]. Whether it's photons or waves is still an open question. It depends on what equipment and how the measurement is being made and interpreted as to what one thinks is being observed.

In the case of circuitry, the Poynting vector is just a placeholder or marker for a scalar value and a direction of the flow of energy in the EM field. As energy is not a material "thing" it has no trouble accelerating around sharp corners or transmitting through material bodies. Sefton's paper illustrates neatly how electrons on the "skin" of wires organize themselves statically to direct, via their electric field influence, the internal flow of electrons around bends and through divisions in a circuit.

I have asked before, if light possesses an energy value, and electricity possesses an energy value, and they both are transmitted in and by the EM field at the local medium's speed of light, what is the crucial difference between them? —or are they intrinsically the same thing?

Jim

[Sparky]

Jim, thanks,,,a lot to consider and study!

I guess i am hung up on ohm's law from my tech school training......and have not been looking at Poynting vectors much...so many new things to learn... ...and since it has been pointed out to me that waves may need a medium to propagate through in space, i may be off on multiple erroneous tangents...

Like Steve Martin said in "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid", when he kept getting shot in the same place on his shoulder, "This is never going to heal".

thanks, Jim..