circuit question in wheels within wheels

[BABOafrica]

The TPOD on Wheels within wheels makes the obvious point that charge would build up if the moving charges did not form part of a closed electric circuit.

I've been wondering about the model for the sun (or any other star). Positive charges flow out from the sun. Negative charges (coming from the heliosphere I assume) flow in through the poles of the sun. (At least that is what I have gathered from many TPOD posts.)

Like a battery, though, this has to equalize at some point, doesn't it? Get enough electrons flowing back the sun and get enough ions flowing out to the heliosphere and, sooner or later, the current dwindles and eventually reduces to zero.

Right?

Intrigued,
Joe

[Goldminer]

The TPOD on Wheels within wheels makes the obvious point that charge would build up if the moving charges did not form part of a closed electric circuit.

I've been wondering about the model for the sun (or any other star). Positive charges flow out from the sun. Negative charges (coming from the heliosphere I assume) flow in through the poles of the sun. (At least that is what I have gathered from many TPOD posts.)

Like a battery, though, this has to equalize at some point, doesn't it? Get enough electrons flowing back the sun and get enough ions flowing out to the heliosphere and, sooner or later, the current dwindles and eventually reduces to zero.

Right?

Intrigued,
Joe

Allow me to reveal my ignorance: Rather than thinking in terms of where positive and negative charges go, (nothing wrong with that by the by) think in terms of voltage and amperage. Voltage is measured across the load (the "incoming" and "outgoing points") and is called voltage drop. The Sun is the load. However the voltage drop is not the energy either.

You might consider amperage to be your "number of charges" or "flow." This measurement is (usually) performed by breaking the circuit and inserting an ammeter. If the circuit under investigation is a series circuit, the ammeter can be inserted anywhere in the circuit; the reading will be identical. Amperage is not energy either.

When amperage is multiplied by voltage drop, we obtain the elusive animal known as "energy." This "energy" is instantaneous energy, measured as wattage. Wattage multiplied by a specific duration of time gives us a measurement quantity of energy in watt hours.

This energy is not consumed, unless you think of this as increasing entropy and therefore consumption. I think of it as transformation of the form of energy. The Sun transforms this incoming energy into all sorts of different forms of energy and matter. Heat, light, kinetic energy and atomic reactions, etc.

.

[jjohnson]

In a circuit with only one polarity (the charges are all either positive or negative) a charge separation somewhere (such as electrochemical charge separation in a battery) creates an electrical field, or a voltage differential or "tension" - all the same. on the "positive side" electrons are emitted into the conducting element ("wire" in typical man-made circuits).

In a circuit where both positive and negative charges are free to move - typically found in plasmas - the electric field or voltage exerts force on each type, whose net effect is to push the negatives one way and to pull the positives in the opposite direction.

The EU concept is that the Sun, or stars in general, are parts of a circuit which moves charges along conductive pathways due to a voltage differential. No one knows precisely how that is effected, yet, frankly. But we observe charges with nt motions in certain directions in space, with electric and magnetic fields present, so it is fair to say that there must be a circuit, and the charges move within it.

Because positive and negative charges move in opposite directions, there are two counterflowing currents of charges, which flow onto or into the star, and then away from the star back into the "open space" leg of the circuit, wherever it is going. Just as with a light bulb in a simple DC circuit, as many electrons enter a star as leave it, and the same is true of the positive charges, too, only they move in the opposite direction. Stars do not get charged up "because electrons are delivered to it but can't leave". They always leave in the same number as arrive

Charges are not destroyed or "used up", because they are not the energy carriers in a circuit. Charge is conserved, until and unless it is neutralized, and even then it is merely neutralized or screened by the combination of two or more charges into a neutral particle or atom. The charged neutron and the charged nucleus still exist; they just exist in even charge number so that they are neutral and are not very reactive to EM forces.

I think that because a plasma conductor (sheet or filament) typically has a much lower particle density than a typical wire circuit composed of a solid or liquid conductor (mercury, Hg, is a good conductor) the counterflow of field aligned (i.e., parallel moving) charged particles do not tend to collide very often at all, although they can exert attractive forces upon one another, a factor that causes chaotic or complex behavior and instabilities at times. Thus, it is not a problem with the opposite charges' getting close enough together to merge into neutral particles. Plasmas build in double walls to separate even slightly different regions of charge from each other, creating voltage potential barriers to charges so that they don't readily jump into a region of opposite charge and neutralize. Plasma dynamics in action.

So long as you have an electric field, or voltage, and moving charges creating a magnetic field, you have an electro-magnetic field surrounding the conductors. This field can store and it can transmit energy. This region is where electrical energy is actually transmitted (not by the moving charges themselves; they play a secondary role), and it is the Poynting vectors that indicate where and how much energy is being transmitted in the field surrounding electrical circuits (named after 19th century natural philosopher or scientist John Henry Poynting, who figured this out and published a couple of papers on it in 1884 and 1885).

Electrical energy is therefore transmitted via the electromagnetic medium or field, so it moves at the local speed of light. Electrons and ions can't move that fast, and in fact either drift along the circuit (DC) or vibrate back and forth with sinusoidal periodic motion (AC) and don't much go anywhere at all, or extremely slowly. If electricity moved at the drift velocity of the electrons in your house wiring, it could take a couple of minutes before the light would come on after you flip the switch. You don't observe that going on, though. It's "really fast".

Jim