Electricity, Electric Discharge & Lightning

[Lloyd]

* In the thread, Electric Sun: A Quantitative Calculation, at http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 135#p50620, Botoxic referenced 3 websites that explain electricity.
* I'll try to post some of the more useful and interesting statements from them here (paraphrased).
"ELECTRICITY" MISCONCEPTIONS IN K-6 TEXTBOOKS - - -William J. Beaty
http://amasci.com/miscon/eleca.html
Both positive and negative charge can flow.
- Electric currents in a metal wire are flows of electrons.
- In many other materials both the positive and negative charges can flow.
- There can be electric currents where no electrons flow at all; e.g. the currents in electrolytes, such as wet dirt and human flesh, are entirely composed of flows of ions, electrified atoms.
- When you get an electric shock, no electrons flow through your body. The electric current inside your tissues is made of positively charged atoms flowing one way and negatively charged atoms flowing the other.
- The same is true of electric currents in salt water, in the ground, and in battery electrolyte.
- Bare electrons can't exist in salt water.
- When an electric current is passing through the inside of a battery, it is not made of moving electrons, it is made of moving electrolyte atoms (ions), and each atom carries a charge imbalance.
- When your car battery is supplying 300 amps to the starter motor, 300A worth of ions is flowing through the battery acid, and approximately half of these are carrying positive charge.
- Also, plasmas can have positive ion currents as well as negative electron flows, as in neon signs, fluorescent lights, camera flashes, and sparks of all kinds.
- There are even some conductors where the current is a flow of positive hydrogen ions, H+ ions, otherwise known as protons. One common " proton conductor" is ice.
- Other proton-conductors are used as solid electrolytes in exotic batteries and, more recently, are found as proton-conductor solid electrolyte membranes in tiny fuel cells.
- During a current, the opposite-charged atoms move in opposite directions, the positive atoms one way, and the negative atoms the other.
- The same thing happens when an electric current passes through the damp earth, or through the ocean, or through your body. None of those are electron currents.
- If you receive an electric shock, no electrons flow inside you. These electric currents are flows of atoms.
- All the electric currents in your brain and nerves are composed of moving sodium and potassium atoms, no electrons.

[Sparky]

hmmmmmm, i was taught basic electronics decades ago, and that was all electron flow...it has served me well, but this new, to me, info. will give me a different perspective...thanks

[jjohnson]

I would like to suggest a paper published by Ian Sefton of the Physics Department at the University of Sydney, at a teaching workshop in 2002.

His concept of how energy is transmitted in a circuit has clarified and improved my thinking on the subject, in the EU context in particular, in a very crucial way. I would suggest that it may not be necessary to "count electrons" or to assign charged particles as "energy carriers" at all in, for example, an electric model of the Sun.

As counter-intuitive as this sounds at first blush, especially in the light of what seems to be written and repeated all the time, just read his paper. It uses no math to make the point. It uses good, normal physics. Its explanation is clear and has some lucid (no pun intended as you will see) diagrams, starting with the simplest of DC circuits — a battery hooked up with wires to a "globe" or light bulb. That's all.

The energy is, not surprisingly, the electro-chemical energy generated by the battery. The battery does this by separating charges so that there is a surplus of negative charges at one contact or pole and a deficiency of negative charges at the other (total charges = net neutrality). The battery creates a voltage difference. (So does a double layer.) A complete or closed circuit is required so that the charged particles (most, by far, in a metallic wire being the "free" or loosely bound and shared electrons) will move under the voltage gradient created by the battery. The charged particles themselves create an electric field field around the wires. (So do the charged particles moving in a plasma.)

Moving charged particles create, by definition, an electric current, and consequently a magnetic field. (So, too, do the Birkeland currents traversing "space". At large scales and distances these are able to be detected and visualized on as large a field as a galaxy. At smaller scales, high amperage and voltage currents, and intense magnetic fields, are routinely observed feeding current from the solar "wind" into the auroras.) The electric field and the magnetic field thus created around the circuitry can be called an electro-magnetic field. (I suggest that no part of "open" space is free of EM field; only its intensity varies.) Energy can be transmitted by or via — however one looks at it — an electromagnetic field. This is how the battery's energy is transmitted to the circuit. The energy does not "travel down the wires". It makes no difference in which direction the charged particles move - they are a crucial but secondary part of the process of energy transmission. The battery's energy is not carried aboard or by the drifting electrons (or any other charged particles). Their role is simply to create the EM field of the circuit.

The electrical energy travels via the EM field at the local speed of light. The energy is transmitted through the surface of the battery to the entire circuit at once. This explains how, when the contactor at the generating plant or the local substation transformer is thrown shut to complete the electrical grid's circuit, all the lights in the city or neighborhood go on effectively at once.

Conversely, if the circuit is "opened" or disconnected, the charged particles cannot move, and the EM field that they created collapses. Energy no longer can move to the circuit across space, and "the lights go out".

It seems to me that this will work as effectively at modeling the Sun [or any star] with its voltage potential difference WRT the rest of the circuit and the EM fields created by plasma currents in and on the Sun, the heliospheric current sheet, the plasma torus, polar jets and other current phenomena within the heliosphere, drawing energy from the larger energy source driving the interstellar currents. No need to have a rain of (relativistic or otherwise) electrons falling onto the Sun. A drift of charged particles, in or out, is all that is needed to set up the necessary EM field. That field is there now, "all the time", now that currents are established to flow. We don't know for how long currents have been flowing all around the stars and through galaxies and from galaxy cluster to cluster.

In cosmic terms, neither we, nor astrophysicists, radio astronomers or observational astronomers in general, know what, ultimately, creates the charge differential, or voltage gradient, that drives the Universe. I know for sure that I do not. But I think that this perspective answers the question, could the Sun be externally powered, with, "yes. It could."

Jim

[Nereid]

Good post Jim (as usual)!

It seems to me that this will work as effectively at modeling the Sun [or any star] with its voltage potential difference WRT the rest of the circuit and the EM fields created by plasma currents in and on the Sun, the heliospheric current sheet, the plasma torus, polar jets and other current phenomena within the heliosphere, drawing energy from the larger energy source driving the interstellar currents. No need to have a rain of (relativistic or otherwise) electrons falling onto the Sun. A drift of charged particles, in or out, is all that is needed to set up the necessary EM field. That field is there now, "all the time", now that currents are established to flow. We don't know for how long currents have been flowing all around the stars and through galaxies and from galaxy cluster to cluster.

That might well be so; however, as I pointed out in the Electric Sun: A Quantitative Calculation thread, plasma discharges are central to the electric Sun hypothesis (or model). The source of energy - to produce the observed electromagnetic radiation emitted by such plasma discharges - is, surely, very well understood by now; after all, these sorts of thing have been studied in the lab for many decades now. Why re-invent the wheel?

[Sparky]

jjohnson,

"The energy does not "travel down the wires"."""

why do they get hot, sometimes melting?

lightning is an example of energy traveling "down a wire", so to speak.

nereid,

Why re-invent the wheel?

I'm working on it!!!

All the electric currents in your brain - are composed of moving sodium and potassium atoms

need more Na and K!

[mharratsc]

Ms. Nereid asked:

That might well be so; however, as I pointed out in the Electric Sun: A Quantitative Calculation thread, plasma discharges are central to the electric Sun hypothesis (or model). The source of energy - to produce the observed electromagnetic radiation emitted by such plasma discharges - is, surely, very well understood by now; after all, these sorts of thing have been studied in the lab for many decades now. Why re-invent the wheel?

What exactly is the question here? Are you asking what powers the Universe? Are you suggesting that - because we've studied local plasma phenomena in laboratories - that we should somehow then be able to deduce or extrapolate from this wherefrom and how far away the power comes from that energizes the (relatively) local plasma phenomenon that we call our Sun?

[jjohnson]

I do not think I am re-inventing the wheel. I am asking questions. As to the source of energy that powers the Sun, my assumption for purposes of this discussion in this forum is that it is powered externally rather than internally. In fact, neither hypothesized mechanism has has been directly observed in situ; all we observe and measure is the radiating surface layer(s) of the star and its sphere of influence, and have to start making up plausible, testable ideas from that.

The Sefton article is, for me, a possible clarification of what may really transpire with circuitry regarding how the energy from some source is transmitted to and throughout a closed circuit. When the circuits are large in scale, as EU proposes, and the circuitry is composed of plasma filaments which generally do not have a bound lattice of positive ions like metal wires, but a fractional composition (net neutral) of positive and negative charges which are both highly mobile and able to be kept separated by the action of the plasma itself, what changes from a simple door buzzer or overhead light circuit?

So far I haven't been able to sketch "The Circuit". It is too complex when I stand back and look at it at arm's length, and I am hardly good at circuitry anyway. But the point is, if stars derive their power via external circuitry, I'd like to know how the energy is actually transmitted, and what the function of the moving charges (at drift velocity) has to do with that transmission. If the EU requires complete circuits (that is, functioning circuits, it seems to me best to try to gain some understanding of how they work.

What the battery or source(s) of power is/are is clearly not obvious. When Professor Paul Bellan throws the switch in his plasma equipment there at CalTech, to try to duplicate solar-like phenomena, you can bet he is not initiating a Tokomak process in the basement to provide the motive power to his vacuum chamber apparatus; he is using the mains like everybody else. He is using electricity to create a plasma process, rather the same as when you flip a switch and turn on the overhead fluorescents in the office. He may be charging a capacitor bank up in order to create the high voltage necessary to begin ionization and create large electromagnetic fields, but his source is some electrical generators somewhere powering his local power grid.

Tony Peratt used a multi-TW capacitor bank (called a Marx bank) of size approximately 800 cubic metres — also charged from the New Mexico power grid in Los Alamos, to power his pulsed-power plasma generator to learn how plasma currents and associated fields work together. Eric Lerner's lab in New Jersey, running an experiment to see if it would be feasible to extract electrical energy from a dense plasma focus by creating a high temperature electromagnetically pinched plasmoid that emits particle jets axially to be collected as power. Until that experiment shows that it can be self-sustaining, it too gets its power from electricity from the grid.

The Sun, if powered via transmission of energy from a charge separation somewhere with a steep voltage gradient, doesn't have the luxury of local mains, and I don't have the luxury of conjecturing where that source of energy is physically located in my remaining lifetime, so all I can do is think long and hard about the circuitry.

Talking to the other side of the issue (still from a non-technical, non-quantitative perspective) if the Sun were powered internally, the present, most commonly accepted viewpoint, the EU sources to which you have access have enumerated a number of anomalies which are difficult for that model to explain well. I'm not saying that your internal source model is wrong; I am saying that if I want to understand how the external source model could work, I need to do my homework. Even then, if I satisfied myself that it could work in that manner, I would still require some sort of observational evidence that that, in fact, IS the best way to say it works.

I am not sure that you want to place yourself in my position and say, what if it works this way (externally powered) - than how might that be happening? —and then go do a bunch of homework and cross-checking references and having to be sure you understand what the units of force, of energy, of power and work are so that you get the dang things right more often than not. (You can probably do that in your head in your sleep!) I have to suspend a lifetime's belief and instruction, and my work in totally un-allied disciplines, just in order to look at cosmic phenomena from a different perspective. If it were easy, it would have been all figured out by now, and I am skeptical that it has.

Sparky: re: "energy traveling down the wires" - If I read Sefton right, the rush of electric power from a source is not axially transmitted from electron to electron within the wires because that is far too slow a mechanism, and, in his interpretation, the wrong mechanism. If the battery were very, very strong, say, it would transmit via the electromagnetic field which arises instantly the electrons begin to move at all — right over to the wires and components via that moving charged-particle-induced EM field. The energy enters the wires, creating a force on the charges, accelerating them; kinetic energy goes up; wires melt. Open a switch, voltage drops suddenly to zero, the charged-particle-induced field collapses, energy transmission from the battery via the field into the "walls" of the wires stops; the melted metal radiates away the kinetic energy and cools in place.

Whether you connect a highly charged (high voltage) battery or generator to a circuit, or a huge capacitor bank, or the energy stored in the electromagnetic field upon which a solar prominence rides comfortably above the chromosphere, you can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time if you don't have a good way of absorbing that in the circuit. In extreme cases, your power grid may explode as the energy in a solar event is channeled into it and grounds out, or a star may explode as the power stored in the field of a large local Birkeland current is diverted into it, as the EU proposes.

Jim

[Lloyd]

* Beaty seems to get info from Sefton. I'm quoting Beaty, because it's easier to comprehend, I think. So here's some more.

Dual Flow
- During electric currents in batteries, in salt water, or in human flesh, the electric current is a flow of both positive and negative ions moving in opposite directions.
- Two flows of "electricity" take place in the same conductor.
- In your brain and nervous system, electric current is a flow of positive and negative atoms going in opposite directions.
- During electric currents in neon signs, in sparks, lightning, etc., there is a flow of both positive ions and electrons. The same is true for liquid metals.
- And when two materials are rubbed together, sometimes positive or negative ions are transferred, and sometimes electrons are transferred.

Electrical Energy
- Electrical energy travels along power lines at almost the speed of light.
- Electrical energy is not trapped inside electrons, but is made of invisible magnetic fields and electric fields which surround electrons and electric wires.
- Electrons and ions don't flow fast like the energy does, but move as a slow electric current.
- How can electrons flow slowly if the energy flows fast? The energy leaps from electron to electron.
- The EM field energy is connected to a whole vast population of electrons in the wire, and it isn't attached to any single one.
- During an electric current, the wires become surrounded with magnetic field. This field IS the electrical energy.
- Also, whenever a pair of wires is connected to a battery or generator, the two wires become oppositely charged, and they become surrounded with an invisible electrostatic field. This field IS the electrical energy.
- Magnetic and electric fields exist in the empty space surrounding your lamp cord, and these fields contain the flow of electrical energy that powers the light bulb.
- Electric and magnetic fields together are "Electromagnetism," the same kind of energy as radio waves and light.
- Those EMFs, or EM fields, that people worry about; the invisible "EMFs" that surround wires and exist invisibly in our homes... that's the electromagnetic energy which lights our lights and runs our appliances.
- It certainly makes sense that it travels at the same speed as radio waves and light, since it's made of the exact same "stuff."
- What electrical energy would look like, if we could see it, is like a fuzzy tube a couple of inches thick, that flows along the lamp cord, when you turn on a light switch.
- It follows the two wires of the cord, then it dives into the thin filament of the light bulb.
- This is the same description taught to advanced engineers in their courses on waveguides and radio physics. It's also taught to university physics students, especially if they read chapter 27 of The Feynman Lectures.

Voltage & Current
- Electrical energy does not flow inside wires and the voltage and current are not part of the energy.
- The current and the voltage are CONNECTED to the flowing energy, but all the energy flows outside of the wires where the electromagnetic fields are.
- The relationships are: CURRENT/INDUCTOR/M-FIELD, and VOLTAGE/CAPACITOR/E-FIELD.
- Because even the simplest electric circuit is like a coil and a capacitor, we have no choice but to say that the energy is stored in the fields surrounding the wires, and is not stored inside the wires.
- If you crank an AC generator that's in a light bulb circuit, it creates voltage and current which lights up the light bulb.
- At the same time, the generator emits electromagnetic fields which run along the cable and dive into the light bulb.
- Since the generator is AC, these fields which run along the wires are the same as electromagnetic waves.
- The light bulb absorbs the energy of the waves, that lights the bulb.
- If you replace the generator with a radio transmitter and turn it on, electromagnetic waves flow along the cable and dive into the light bulb and light it up.
- The radio transmitter acts like an AC power supply, producing voltage and current.
- There's no real difference between the radio transmitter and any other AC generator.
- If you now replace the light bulb with an antenna and turn on the transmitter, it will send radio waves out into space!
- The antenna lets the electromagnetic field-energy escape from the conductor into space, but no voltage or current is needed.
- Finally, replace the transmitter with the AC generator, connected to a large antenna.
- When you crank the generator, it creates voltage and current to the antenna, which will emit electromagnetic waves into space.
- The electrical energy IS electromagnetic fields, the same as radio waves.
- At sixty cycles per second, you'd need an antenna that was many hundreds of miles long.
- In the early 20th century, radio pioneers actually used AC generators to create radio waves.
- They called these alternators, and ran them at extremely high frequencies.
- Since electrical energy is electromagnetic fields, like radio waves, it makes sense that the energy in electric circuits can also fly through empty space all by itself.

[fosborn]

quote]by Lloyd » Apr 24th, '11, 14:24

* In the thread, Electric Sun: A Quantitative Calculation, at http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 135#p50620, Botoxic referenced 3 websites that explain electricity.
* I'll try to post some of the more useful and interesting statements from them here (paraphrased).
"ELECTRICITY" MISCONCEPTIONS IN K-6 TEXTBOOKS - - -William J. Beaty
http://amasci.com/miscon/eleca.html
Both positive and negative charge can flow.[/quote]


Lloyd I think this portion may give a simpler presentation of where this guy is coming form.

http://amasci.com/miscon/energ1.html

Before I go too far with this, I must admit that I am playing a small trick with words. In the above statements, I am using the word "electricity" in the way scientists have used it since Electricity was first investigated. I am using the word "electricity" to name the stuff that flows inside the wires; where a quantity of electrons is a quantity of electricity, and where a flow of electricity is called "an electric current."

Why is this a trick? It's a trick because most people use the word "electricity" in a totally different way. They begin by defining the word "electricity" to mean electrical energy! Electric companies do this (think of kilowatt-hours of electricity.) So do the science textbooks written for grades K-6. So do many dictionaries and encyclopedias. This causes endless confusion. Physicists try to tell us that the charges of electricity are not energy, and that a flow of charges is not a flow of energy. But then what is an electric current? Under the definition of "electricity" used by all the non-scientists, an electric current IS NOT a flow of electricity!

MORE TRUE STATEMENTS ABOUT "ELECTRICITY"

In a DC circuit, the electricity within the wires flows exceedingly slowly; at speeds around inches per minute. At the same time, the electrical energy flows at nearly the speed of light.
If we know the precise amount of electricity flowing per second through a wire (the Amperes,) this tells us nothing about the amount of energy being delivered per second into a light bulb (the Watts.) Amperes are not Watts, an electric current is not a flow of energy; they are two different things.
In an electric circuit, the flow of the electricity is measured in Coulombs per second (Amperes.) The flow of energy is measured in Joules per second (Watts.) A Coulomb is not a Joule, and there is no way to convert from Coulombs of charge into Joules of energy, or from Amperes to Watts.A quantity of electricity is not a quantity of energy.
Electrical energy is electromagnetism; it is composed of an electromagnetic field. On the other hand, the particles of electricity (electrons) flowing within a wire have little resemblance to an electromagnetic field. They are matter. Electricity is not energy, instead it is a major component of everyday matter.

[Nereid]

Ms. Nereid asked:

That might well be so; however, as I pointed out in the Electric Sun: A Quantitative Calculation thread, plasma discharges are central to the electric Sun hypothesis (or model). The source of energy - to produce the observed electromagnetic radiation emitted by such plasma discharges - is, surely, very well understood by now; after all, these sorts of thing have been studied in the lab for many decades now. Why re-invent the wheel?

What exactly is the question here? Are you asking what powers the Universe? Are you suggesting that - because we've studied local plasma phenomena in laboratories - that we should somehow then be able to deduce or extrapolate from this wherefrom and how far away the power comes from that energizes the (relatively) local plasma phenomenon that we call our Sun?

None of that Mike.

I seem to have created a misunderstanding by not using the word 'directly' (and perhaps 'proximate'): The proximate source of energy - to directly produce the observed electromagnetic radiation emitted by such plasma discharges.

Also, this question/comment of mine relates specifically to the published electric Sun hypothesis (or model), in which plasma discharges are central. DC plasma discharges - in media with the density and composition of the interplanetary medium etc - are quite well understood, are they not?

Jim,

It seems to me you have gone far beyond anything published, by EU theorists!

As I just said, to Mike, in EU theory (re the Sun), DC plasma discharges are central. Such discharges are quite well understood. Why not use the body of well-established knowledge on such things to develop testable hypotheses directly related to the electric Sun model (as published)?

[mharratsc]

Ms. Nereid asked:

Why not use the body of well-established knowledge on such things to develop testable hypotheses directly related to the electric Sun model (as published)?

Testable how? How are we to fund such tests? In your professional opinion, whom could we approach for a grant in this matter? o.O

[Lloyd]

* Here's more from Beaty, paraphrased.
Superconductivity
- Sustaining a magnetic field requires no energy.
- Circuits only require energy to initially create a magnetic field, or to overcome electrical friction (resistance), to keep the charges from slowing down as they flow in wires.
- But if the resistance is removed, the magnetic field can exist continuously without any energy input.
- If electrically frictionless superconductive wire is used, a coil can be momentarily connected to an energy supply to create the field, then the power supply can be removed and both the current and the magnetic field will continue forever without further energy input.
[My comment: Conventional science seems to assume that plasma is a superconductor, which can sustain magnetic fields indefinitely, without an electric field, but vacuum tubes seem to prove that plasma is not superconductive. Do vacuum tubes sustain magnetic fields without electric fields and without continuous electric current? Astronomers seem to assume that magnetic fields in space are frozen in, due to the assumed superconductivity of plasma. If plasma can be shown to be non-superconductive, wouldn't that prove that the magnetic fields in space must be produced by electric currents?
- See these TPODs: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=e ... 84586d88e6 ]

Visible Electric Charge
- Electric charges are easily visible to human eyes, even though their motion is not, so electricity is visible.
- When you look at a metal wire, you can see the charges of electricity which would flow during electric currents.
- They are silvery and make a mirror-like shine.
- A dense crowd of electrons looks silvery; "electric fluid" is a silver liquid; and if metals weren't full of movable electrons, they wouldn't look metallic.

Electric Current in Vacuum
- If we were to inject charges into a vacuum, then we would have electric current in a vacuum.
- This is how TV picture tubes and vacuum tubes work; electrons are forcibly injected into the empty space by a hot filament.
- However, it's no longer a vacuum when it contains a cloud of electrons!
- The electron cloud is required before there can be any conductivity in the vacuum between the plates.

Plasma Versus Electricity
- A spark is not electricity, but is NITROGEN/OXYGEN PLASMA, which is like fire.
- The plasma is created when high voltage is present, which tears air molecules apart.
- As they hit other molecules or fall back together, they give off light.
- Plasma is conductive, so once it has formed between two wires, it joins the wires together electrically, and charges can flow through it.
- It might SEEM as if "electricity" has jumped through the air. In reality, a glowing conductor has formed, made of plasma.
- We can only see the plasma jump between the ends of the wires. We cannot see the flowing charges or the electrical energy.

[Lloyd]

* No Superconductivity in Plasma?

Conventional science seems to assume that plasma is a superconductor, which can sustain magnetic fields indefinitely, without an electric field, but vacuum tubes seem to prove that space plasma is not superconductive.

* Proof: This site, http://www.fascistsoup.com/2010/05/26/m ... -was-wrong, is the best one I've found so far that explains why plasma is not a superconductor. It says:

- ... in order to create a magnetic field, one must first induce an electrical current. So far, this is the only known way of producing a magnetic field in a plasma that can be tested.
- As soon as the current shuts off, so too does the magnetic field.
- Only an electric current can produce a magnetic field in a plasma, without moving electrons a magnetic field is impossible. Nearly all standard theory explanations of plasma and magnetic fields in space assume a “frozen in” state, where there is no current flowing in the plasma. If this was actually the case, there would be no magnetic fields in space since there would be no moving electrons.
- ... There are no such things as “frozen in magnetic fields in plasma.” Such a plasma is purely abstract formalism and cannot be demonstrated in a lab. A simple discharge tube experiment proves that plasma is not an ideal conductor (a superconductor with zero-valued resistance). Voltage in a real plasma never drops to zero and therefore resistance never drops to zero, ergo plasma is not a superconductor. Hence, any theory that relies on plasma being regarded as an ideal conductor having “frozen in” magnetic fields is in error.

* Source? - Someone said: Radio astronomer, Gaensler, said everyone knows [magnetic fields in space] are created by electric currents, and [he] went on to note that ... the real mystery is, what sustains them (the fields and the currents) over such immense distances for such huge periods of time. That seems a question that neither the EU nor the mainstream have a coherent answer about right now.

* Does EM Radiation Cause Charge Separation in Space?
* Since it was recently [?] found that EM radiation separates charges in water and makes it a battery, is it possible that EM radiation separates charge in space to sustain electric currents there?

[Solar]

Thank you for posting the Sefton piece Jim. I haven't had time to finish it but the opening salvo caused me to hit the print button right away. In the thread "Some EU Questions" I wrote "It is long past time to further discover the nature of "electricity" because I think that much regarding the nature of electricity has been, and is being, 'discarded' due to this "attempt" at oversimplification. There are some crucial aspects that Sefton touches on:

… trying to oversimplify some basic physics, thosebooks introduce or encourage some serious misconceptions and tell stories that are hard to believe. – Sefton

Just the other day I needed to download “Electric Discharges,Waves Impulses and other Transients” by Steinmetz again and I decided to read the review at the bottom of a separate link for that book here. The author states:

Todays students often express concern about the tendency of modern textbook writers to use unexplained simplifications. In at least some cases (for instance the bottom of page 68 & top of page 69--screens 81 & 82) Steinmetz carefully warns the reader of cases where a simplification gives incorrect results.

It is interesting that Steinmetz’s book was published in 1911 and the very same caution was advised. This oversimplification is what I am having problems with as of late with regard to the electric forces. I thought it marvelous that Sefton pointed out that the “energy” relationships amongst or between “fields” occur in “space” aka the “vacuum.” i'd like to take that concept along with a snippet from Lloyd’s post regarding “waveguides.”

This is the same description taught to advanced engineers in their courses on waveguides and radio physics.

The following from Sefton is the point I like as he references Sommerfield et al: “Metals conduct current but space conducts energy and the best conductor of electromagnetic energy is the vacuum!”

For my taste this understanding is crucial. The wire appears to function as a “waveguide” for the potential energy “stored” in the “field.” The implication is that the “fields” are the result of a ‘change’ of state’ for a particular region, or volume, of said “vacuum” which is no longer considered to be "empty." The notion was also generally conveyed thus:

The work spent in producing the electrification of a conductor is spent on the medium and stored there, probably as energy of motion. To denote this we shall say that the medium around the conductor is polarized, this word being employed to denote that its state or some of its properties have been altered in some manner by the work done on it — that is, by the energy stored in it. In the case of a conductor possessing what is termed a positive charge, the medium around it is polarized in a certain manner and to a certain extent depending on the intensity of the charge. If the charge be negative the polarization is in the opposite sense, the two being related, perhaps, like right-handed and left-handed twists or rotations. - “The Sea of Energy in Which the Earth Floats”: T. Henry Moray

The question is ‘How, in the “space” surrounding the wire, is the energy conveyed?’ The answer methinks is by way of “wave coupling."

I consider that so called “particles” are formed via phase-transition of “field energy” by way of “superposition” (actually superimposition) of the energy of the wave(s) i.e. wavelength, frequency, amplitude etc. Considering “particles” as somehow separate in relation to the “fields” from which they originate results in confusion. When Sefton advises “Think instead of energy as a property of the whole system.”: the “fields” must then have relation to the “particles” to such extent that “rest mass”, kinetic energy, mass energy, inertial momentum are the result of the “transduction” of the “wave energy” as that energy exist in the form of the “potential” considered as being “stored” in the form of “field energy.” Both 'phase-transition' and 'transmutation' are part of the energy dynamic.

In this way the energetic characteristics of the “electron”, for example – itself a ‘product’ of the superimposition of “field energy” - is not only “coupled” to the “field” by interactions of the waves but also ‘emits’ its own wave lengths, frequencies etc and presents a proximal field superimposed with the distal wave energy of the dynamical “vacuum.”

It seems to me that an “electric current” along a length of wire could qualify as the conveyance of wave lengths, wave frequencies, wave speeds (wave energy in general) not only ‘through’ the “medium of the “vacuum” (the space surrounding the wire) but also energy ‘of’ affected regions of said “vacuum” itself. The wire would serves as a “waveguide”. This is not to say that the lattice of the wire, the electrons therein, ions etc do not ‘participate’ in the ‘transference’ of the wave energy. They do. However, their much slower motion appears to be the result of a ‘lag’ to the more intense energy of the wavelength and wave speed of the “field energy.”

One might therefore conclude that the property called “charge” is perhaps more so the ‘rate’ at which there occurs a ‘continuous transduction’ of “field energy” and not a quality or quantity that is “carried” and/or ‘deposited’ at some location.

In this way the wire is a (metallic) ‘reflector’ of the wave energy of the “field.” An “insulator” becomes the real “conductor” presenting no ‘reflective resistance’ to the wave energy of the “field” but instead allowing it (the “vacuum” to extrapolate on Sefton’s approach) to ‘pass through’ or ‘pass into’ the separate “phase-space” of a dielectric to be recovered at some later point:

MIT Physics Demo -- Dissectible Capacitor

It is interesting to consider that the metal sleeves in the above capacitor may be in the act of 'internal reflection' of the "field energy." I don't know if it is a case of the "charge" being deposited along the outside of the glass etc. Regarding what is normally considered to be a ‘conductor’ here is the same ‘reflector’ analogy in terms of the wire being an “electromagnetic shield”:

The skin effect occurs because metals act as electromagnetic shields, and because electrical energy always travels as electromagnetic (EM) fields across circuits. When a generator sends electrical energy to your home, the energy travels as EM fields near the wires, and the flowing energy is solidly coupled to the electrons and protons in the metal wires. (Most people assume that electrical energy travels INSIDE the wires. Not so.)

When pulses of electrical energy travel along a wire, they produce an excess charge on the surface of a wire, and they cause an electric current inside the wire. But because the metal acts like an EM shield, at first the path for electric current only exists on the surface. As the millionths of seconds pass by, more and more electric current appears deep inside the wire. Finally after a fraction of a second the current is everywhere inside the wire. Scroll Down here

The next video deals with “refraction” specifically however, I think it serves as an approximate to a metallic ‘reflector’ of “field energy” including the setting up of another distinct ‘electric field’ of different wavelength, wave speed, and frequency inside the wire owing to "field" interaction with the constituents therein.

The line bisecting the screen represents the surface of the wire, the ‘beading’ of ‘standing waves’ is analogous to the “skin effect.” Below the line representing the surface (one is now within the lattice of the metal) the “electrons” would move slower as they ‘lag’ behind the originating wave yet having interacted with it. Considering this ‘lag’ and the faster ‘vortices’ of ‘standing waves’ that would constitute the skin effect the dynamic might present the illusion of “conduction bands” wherein electrons ‘rise’ in the wire towards different energy levels until they reach said theoretical ‘conduction band’:

Light Refraction through a Dielectric (Simulation)

Just sharing some thoughts.

[jjohnson]

Excellent post, Solar.
I'd like to add that, in a short e-mail discussion with Ian S. yesterday, he pointed out that most of this was published around 1884 by John Poynting, one of the unsung geniuses of electromagnetic theory. I told Ian that, dang it, every time I "discover something new", I find out it was published in the 1800's. How little I know! How much has been abandoned to just lie fallow, or is just not thought to be useful to teach to our budding scientists!

"On the transfer of energy in the electromagnetic field", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 175, Part II, pp 343-361.
"On the connexion between electric current and the electric and magnetic inductions in the surrounding field", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 176, pp 277-306.

Courtesy of Ian Sefton, and thanks for freely sharing what he knows!

Incidentally, Brian Gaensler was responding in a single note to my and Jarvamundo's similar e-mails to him regarding his studies of galactic magnetic fields. He impresses me favorably and has an interesting website. He, like Ian Sefton, are both from the University of Sydney, AU. They must be doing something right!
Jim