Then electrons would behave completely different in a magnetic field, pulled either in the direction of the field lines or in the opposite direction. They aren’t, the forces are entirely perpendicular to the movement of the electrons, so you’re still ignoring very basic experimental evidence in favour of random speculation.
QUOTE]Then electrons would behave completely different in a magnetic field, pulled either in the direction of the field lines or in the opposite direction. They aren’t, the forces are entirely perpendicular to the movement of the electrons, so you’re still ignoring very basic experimental evidence in favour of random speculation.
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Hello, Naita
I guess you have realised that you were he one who nearly made me throw in the towel! Have you achieved it? Maybe, maybe not. One step at a time. But I wish you were working with me and not against me in trying to introduce what could be perceived as a fairly fundamental change in the perception of the electron, indeed all ‘charged’ particles. But here is my answer to your question.
The concept of the electron as a ‘magnetic monopole’ does not mean that it has a north and south face as a magnet is perceived to have. If an electron is ‘static’, it has both mass and spin but no magnetic field. It can only create a magnetic field ring, when it is accelerated into motion, using the energy that it absorbs from the acceleration process to generate it.
In concept, I do not see any difference between an electron travelling down a wire and an electron in free flight, except that in a wire they are constrained to its boundaries.
In both situations the electrons generate their own magnetic field and the force they experience when passing through an external magnetic field applied at right angles to their line of flight, is caused by the repelling or attracting interaction of these two magnetic fields.
So if the electron is moving in a wire, the wire itself experiences the cumulated repelling or attracting force between these multiple magnetic rings, whereas an electron or electron beam in free flight passing through a similarly applied magnetic field, experiences the same repelling force which changes its trajectory, dependent upon the polarity of the applied magnetic field. It is not ‘attracted’ to the ‘magnetic poles’, it is their lines of force that either attract or repel when they come into contact.
That’s my understanding. Or should I be saying, ” random speculation”!
I have lifted a passage from Wikipedia which outlines Michael Faraday’s own view of this interplay between magnetic fields, perhaps more lucidly than my own.
“If an external magnetic field is applied horizontally, so that it crosses the flow of electrons (in the wire conductor, or in the electron beam), the two magnetic fields will interact. Michael Faraday introduced a visual analogy for this, in the form of imaginary magnetic lines of force: those in the conductor form concentric circles round the conductor; those in the externally applied magnetic field run in parallel lines. If those (on) one side of the conductor are running (from the north to south magnetic pole) in the opposite direction to those surrounding the conductor, they will be deflected so that they pass on the other side the conductor (because magnetic lines of force cannot cross or run contrary to each other). Consequently, there will be a large number of magnetic field lines in a small space on that side of the conductor, and a dearth of them on the original side of the conductor. Since the magnetic field lines of force are no longer straight lines, but curved to run around the electrical conductor, they are under tension (like stretched elastic bands), with energy stored up in the magnetic field.
There is therefore a force that is being applied to the only moveable object in the system (the electrical conductor) to expel out of the externally applied magnetic field. This is the reason for torque in an electric motor. Faraday’s Law: the induced electromotive force in a conductor is directly proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic flux in the conductor.
John
I know that a monopole doesn’t have a north and south face, that’s why it’s mono-, but a magnetic monopole does have a magnetic field. You’re still trying to rename things you don’t understand for a purpose that doesn’t make sense.
Replacing the concept of the electron and the proton having an “electric” charge with a “magnetic monopole" charge would simplify the physics of the atom and the nature of light, simply by reducing the concept of two force components down to one.
Strange looking it would initially be, but that’s been true for all the developments in Physics, such as Einstein’s ‘relativity’ and ‘quantum’ ideas. The atom would no longer rely upon electrostatic attraction to function, but would function as a “magnetic atom”. Electrons would no longer repel each other by their negative charges, but would be magnetically attracted to each other in pairs.
The electron pairs in a shell would become self-sustaining through their mutual magnetic attraction. Turning the current concept of the atom upon its head, the nucleus itself would be held in place by its electron shells, rather than being the central force holding the atom together. This would incidentally explain Moseley’s squared law of X-ray generation.
It could also explain the particle and wave nature of electrons, the phenomenon of entanglement of light quanta and electrons, even particle tunnelling. But I run ahead of myself.
Or understand the implications of the concept in a different manner to you. I have given twenty sound reasons why the concept of electric charge does not make any sense. If you can give me twenty sound reasons why it does, then I’ll listen to your “defence of the status quo” again.
No, you haven’t. You’ve given a list of twenty points that you personally see as reasons the concept of electric charge not making sense. The participants in this thread have sought to illuminate your underlying misconceptions about science and charge rather than picking this list apart point by point.
Why don’t you instead help us along by going through the list and explaining for each how your introduction of RTCP-ian magnetic monopoles (as they are not behaving like the monopoles defined by current physics) resolve the issues you perceive?
I would go one further. There are no end of people that come up with conceptual ideas they claim are better than current physics. What they almost universally lack is any predictive power, or any mathematics. Simple challenge. Derive a Bohr atom equivalent from the RTPC-monopole. The Bohr atom manages to predict remarkably well the emission line wavelengths of hydrogen. It is taught in high school. A reasonably smart 17 year old can derive it.
So got to it. You need nothing more than an electron, a proton, and your new special monopole physics. Show us the answer.
You know, I guess I don’t really mind that armchair physicists want to throw out well-developed and experimentally-verified theories in favor of vague ideas that have no predictive power, lack any sort of rationale or model, and were thought up to solve problems that aren’t even problems. What bothers me is that that the physics involved is so old and excessively proved. Classical quantum mechanics dates from the late 1920s; special relativity (the questions about planes on conveyor belts and rotating mirrors seem to mostly ignore general relativity) dates from the 1900s; and Maxwell’s equations are from the 1860s. They’re all pretty solidly established at this point with experiment and theoretical, mathematical models, and they’re part of any undergrad physics curriculum. They’re not complete (nor are they believed to be), but they’re not arbitrary or broken or unexamined. Doesn’t anyone want to claim that renormalization is groundless black magic, that right-handed neutrinos exist, or anything related to string theory?
There are times when I would be first in line. :eek:
In contrast, here’s a paper that does similar idle speculation properly. It proposes a composite structure for quarks and some other now-considered fundamental particles, but it was (quite reasonably) never taken seriously by other physicists, nor I think even by its authors. Still, it presents a model using math and science rather than mere arbitrary speculation. Specifically:
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It describes the problem it’s trying to solve, which is an actual problem and not something that the authors merely lack the background or expertise or ability to understand.
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It goes into the details of the theory. The paper is not asking, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if electrons and quarks were made of other things?” It describes in mathematical and physical detail what those things are, what those things are not, and what physical considerations cause those two contraints.
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It goes into the consequences of the model. This is not the same as making predictions; it uses its parsimonious assumptions to derive other results, such as what physics would look like in this new system. In short, the article explores the consequences of its setup and shows how to do physics in this new environment.
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The article uses math and physics throughout. It’s about a possible new development in quantum theory, but it uses QFT and the Lagrangian setup, gauge theory, etc. It avoids reinventing the wheel for no apparent reason, and it doesn’t summarily discard perfectly good, proven physics.
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The theory is falsifiable. This is theoretical physics (in fact, very speculative stuff), so it doesn’t provide a convenient experiment you can take over to CERN and run. On the other hand, it does give a series of results that would refute it.
RTCPhysics, I don’t see your ideas meeting any of those five criteria.
One good reason to accept the charge concept is that it provides copious experimentally verified predictions, including predictions used to design and build the device that I’m typing this message on, the system used to transmit this message and the device you are reading it on.
If a variant concept of charge is to be even worth considering, it must make exactly the same predictions as the current concept, for all the already tested situations and make additional predictions that measurably differ from the predictions made by the current concept.
In order for a variant concept to be accepted, its new predictions need to actually turn out to be correct.
The quantized nature of charge is a much, much later discovery of quantum physics.
Until then, they knew that chemical reactions happened in ratios of whole numbers of “charges”, however, they couldn’t be sure that the subatomic particles did indeed have consisted charges. Remember, the former thing is an aggregate phenomenon.
We don’t know the atomic-level details of subatomic particles very well, that is, the very nature of matter itself. Some theories even have space itself quantized (weird, like imagining space being made of pixels or empty minecraft cubes)
All that “charge” says is that charge is some state of matter, where when the matter has it, there is a force that can behave in two ways, repulsively or attractively. That binary nature implies two “types” of charges
all that being said, I hadn’t even finished reading what you wrote, sorry
In general you’re spot on. And clearly our OP’s theories are what’re technically referred to as “crank” science, even though he is one of the most polite and logical purveyors of same I’ve ever encountered.
But … I will quibble about this statement of yours: “If a variant concept of charge is to be even worth considering, it must make exactly the same predictions as the current concept, for all the already tested situations and make additional predictions that measurably differ from the predictions made by the current concept.”
Not really. All it has to be is 1) make (at least) the same predictions, and 2) be conceptually clearer. And #2 is really the nub of the OP’s position.
His argument is that, for essentially historical reasons, modern science has a conception of charge which is convoluted and sorta inside out / sideways. Yes, it works, but it’s ugly. He proposes to look at charge from a more fundamentally correct POV, thereby substituting simplicity for complexity and clarity for confusion.
Again, I think he’s objectively wrong in that belief. His objections to current theory stem from lack of knowledge, and his proposed conceptual reformulation suffers egregious faults of its own that he’s not yet explored far enough to have discovered.
But that doesn’t mean the abstract concept of rearranging an existing paradigm is fundamentally flawed or *a priori *without possible merit.
You raise a good point - I agree that having different ways of conceptualizing a particular physical phenomenon can be very useful, even if each way produces the same predictions.
It should also be noted, incidentally, that if there is even one magnetic monopole in the Universe, as well as at least one electric charge, that is actually enough to guarantee that both electric and magnetic charge must be quantized in integer multiples of some pair of fundamental charges (one each electric and magnetic). So if magnetic charges (AKA monopoles) exist, they must be just as quantized as electric charges.
Hi, Itself,
You and Naita make formidable opponents. What you outline here makes good sense, but I am only at the stage of ‘fault finding’ in the concept of electrostatics. I look forwards to the next stage that you are both challenging me with. I will not be re-inventing the wheel, because the functionality of magnetism is totally different to the simplistic functionality of electrostatics. But I will be discarding the understandably dated ideas from Benjamin Franklin onwards.
However, your message was loud and clear. Leave well alone. All is well in the world of QED.
So for me, it is one step at a time. The concept of an electrostatic charge is like a swiss cheese. It’s full of holes and ‘fatally flawed’. Edifices built upon flawed concepts are bound to crumble eventually.
I appreciate that support is limited and this is always the case with change, but in the public domain there are two professors of physics who also hold reservations about the concept of electrostatics.
Firstly, Professor David J Griffiths. In his textbook upon Electrostatics, he makes a statement upon Page 95, where he summed up the weakness of the current concept of electrostatic charge, as follows:
Quote: “Still, the infinite energy of a point charge is a recurring embarrassment for electromagnetic theory, afflicting the quantum version as well as the classical.”
Secondly, Professor Walter Lewin MIT, Electrostatics course.
Quote: “The principle of Superposition applied to electrostatic charges is not understood, but we use it because it works.”
But they still continue to teach the subject as if it all does make sense. To progress this I have to enumerate the essential ideas of electrostatics as it is still being taught, which you may think is year one, Undergrad stuff, which it is. But to highlight the inanity of the concept, this is what I have to do it.
- Certain particles such as the electron and the proton have an electrostatic charge.
- The charge on both these two particle types has a fixed magnitude and this unit of energy is called an ‘electron-volt’.
- The charge on both particle types has the capability of emitting an electrostatic force field that completely surrounds the particle, with its magnitude falling off as the square of the distance from it, so that it effectively stretches to infinity in all directions.
- There are two forms of this charge. One is a called positive and the other negative.
- When two charged particles exist, their three-dimensional electrostatic fields encompass each other and they are able to interact together without any loss of their one electron volt of energy.
- If the two charges are unable to move, then they will either attract or repel each other. So if one is positive and the other negative, then they will experience an attracting force towards each other, but simultaneously will create a neutral zone in electrostatic field between themselves. The hydrogen atom and all other primordial atoms are classed as being electrostatically neutral.
- On the other hand, if both charged particles are jointly positive or jointly negative and unable to move, then they will experience a repelling force away from each other, but retain either their combined positive or combined negative electrostatic fields around themselves and each other.
- If a third positively or negatively charged particle is added into a fixed point in this three dimensional space, then it will experience an attracting or repelling force from both these two charges, with the magnitude of the force exerted being dependent upon the distance that it resides from the two original charged particles.
- This force obeys the principle of superposition in that all three particles experience a force whose magnitude is the linear sum of the force they would have experienced had one of the other three particles not been there. The direction of attraction or repulsion of this force upon a particular particle is determined by the vector sum of the forces exerted by the other two particles.
- Further particles can be added to the electrostatic field with these same rules applying.
Summarising, we are asked to believe that these charged particles have limitless energy, (Prof David Griffiths), that they do not lose energy when they interact with each other, (Prof David Griffiths), that the force they exert upon one another is unaffected by their interactions with other charged particles in their environment, (Prof Walter Lewin).
The perception of charged particles as being fixed in space violates the Uncertainty Principle. In reality, all charged particles are free to move under an attracting or repelling force, until some sort of equilibrium is reached, as must occur in every atom.
But as it stands, this concept of electrostatics charge implies that a single charged proton of say, the hydrogen atom, can attract not just one electron into the 1s orbit level, but using the proton’s infinite charge and applying the principle of superposition, can fill up all its s,p,d,f levels. As far as I know, these ionised hydrogen atoms just do not exist.
Moving electrons create a finite magnetic field, so both the electrostatic field and the magnetic field must co-exist. As with the Penning trap, the two fields co-exist independently. Drawing a conclusion from this, that because there are two fields, one magnetic and the other electrostatic, that they exist as a unified electromagnetic field is just nonsense. As I have outlined in an earlier post, the two are fundamentally different and incompatible concepts of a force field.
So as I started out, the concept of electrostatic charge has as many holes in it as a swiss cheese, but it is still being taught! I think that is one useful goal to have, even if its just a ‘spin-off’ from the project’s main aim.
The language of physics is math. Not English. Math. Unless you’re talking math you’re not saying anything. Literally, not anything meaningful or useful.
Give us math or give us nothing.
Yes.
No. Charge and energy are two different concepts. The electron has a charge of - 1.6010^-19 coloumb, the proton has a charge of 1.6010^-19 coloumb. An electron volt is a unit of energy equivalent to the potential energy of an elementary charge at 1 V potential. This works out to 1.60*10^-19 joule and is a convenient energy unit for atomic physics, but the numerical equivalence between 1 eV converted to coloumbs and 1 eV converted to joules does not indicate some equivalence between energy and charge.
Yes. That’s how field work. Electric, magnetic, gravity.
Yup
You don’t understand the relationship between energy and charge. That’s not a flaw of electrostatic theory. Do you want to challenge the concept of mass as well? If I have two masses, their gravitational fields encompass each other, and they are able to interact without any loss of mass.
Yes, that’s empirically verified from literally thousands of experiments.
Ditto.
Ditto.
Ditto.
DITTO!
You can find highly educated people saying all sorts of crazy or wrong things, but a more parsimonious explanation here is that you’re just not competent to understand what they’re writing about.
No, it doesn’t. The proton has a finite charge and any additional electrons would interact not just with the proton but with the electron(s) already there as well. Hydrogen with two electrons does exist Hydrogen anion) and you are a veritable fount of misunderstanding.
Oh goodie, now we get to dabble in the realm of relativity. There are no preferred reference frames. So everything that works out with your one electron moving has to work out the same if we use a co-moving reference frame, i.e. one where that particular electron is stationary. Your “outline” is fundamentally different from and incompatible with observable reality.
You basically don’t actually understand the conclusions drawn or what they are actually based upon.
The Swiss cheese here is your understanding of basic physics and the mountain of empirical evidence it rests upon.
That is not my message. My message is this: You don’t understand enough about electromagnetism, at either the classical or quantum-mechanical or quantum-field-theory level, to say anything useful about it at all.
Please don’t go mining for quotes. Griffiths is the author of a number of popular quantum textbooks, and I think I might have taken electromagnetism from Lewin. (Did he ever teach whichever of the 8.02* classes was the mathiest one?) They don’t agree with you.
Also, people are not failing to support you because they’re afraid of change; they’re failing to support you because you’re not presenting an even slightly convincing argument. For example:
Electric charge is not the same as energy. We can’t take you seriously as someone trying to do physics if you don’t even understand that very basic point.
Also:
Do you know what a field is? You’re arguing against a concept that it doesn’t seem like you actually understand.
As naita pointed out, they do in fact exist. It sounds, though, like you’re asking why a proton doesn’t just suck all of the electrons in the universe (or at least the ones nearby) into it, since it attracts them all with a force that has infinite range. The short answer is that the electromagnetic force (or gravity) is not the only interaction that occurs in the universe, atoms are not classical objects, and atomic structure involves much more than classical electromagnetism.
As I said, there are five criteria that distinguish scientific speculation from nonsense. You obviously read them, but you’re still not addressing any of them. Until you do, this is a waste of time.
At some risk of ire from our esteemed experts, may I humbly suggest DNFTT?