Moderator Note
Accusations of trolling are not permitted in GQ. Please don’t do this.
No warning issued.
If anyone can provide the context for this statement “Still, the infinite energy of a point charge is a recurring embarrassment for electromagnetic theory, afflicting the quantum version as well as the classical.” I’d appreciate it. I’m curious what the surrounding text is about.
It’s an artifact of treating electrons as point charges, and it’s directly addressed in QED by renormalization. Yeah, renormalization is sort of a crutch, but then again, so is treating electrons as point particles to begin with. Renormalizing the mass of the electron is basically the same as saying “the electron actually has a nonzero size, but that size is so small that we don’t know what it is, and don’t care”. Which is a perfectly sensible statement, which carries no paradox or failure of logic.
Thanks. That’s what I thought the quote was about (the “infinite energy” that arises when considering a point particle, vice any concerns about the infinite range of the electric force). What I’m really looking for, though, is the text surrounding the quote in the textbook by David Griffiths.
Page 95 here: http://maktabkhooneh.org/files/library/eng/electrical/7.pdf
It’s a scan (and probably violates copyright) so can’t be copied here.
RTCPhysics leaves out the following sentence from the parenthetical: We shall return to the problem in Chapter 11.
Thanks. So Griffiths was talking about the self energy issue, not any supposed problem associated with infinite range of the electrostatic force.
Yes that is my view and although an ionised hydrogen atom has been put forward as some sort of rebuttal, it doesn’t wash and the theory of electrostatics as it stands, would negate the existence of the Periodic Table of Elements. Why would you bother adding more neutrons and protons to the nucleus, if you could stack electrons all on one proton!
But I’m intending to follow your five step plan. The first step was the ‘demolition’ phase targeting electrostatics. Now it’s the stage two, which is to specify what is being proposed as a modification to the current theory.
“In essence, the proposal is that the electron will be redefined without an electrostatic capability. The ‘revised electron’ will still retain its mass, spin and magnetic characteristics, but the magnetic capability will be brought to the fore to create the ‘attracting’ and ‘repelling’ force field, that was originally attributed to an electrostatic field.”
The ‘revised electron’ particle could be thought of as a ‘magnetic monopole’, but this is a concept born of Geophysics with its north-south seeking attribute from the earth’s magnetic field and has no role to play in the functioning of a revised electron. Each magnetic ring starts from the electron and follows a finite loop before returning back to its home electron. The energy expended over this loop is finite and never dissipated. So the magnetic field generated by the electron is both quantised and self-sustaining.
Each magnetic ring has exactly the same quantity of ‘magnetic charge’ and spreads this energy out equally over the circumference of its loop. The longer the path, the lower is the energy content that it carries at any point on the loop and vice versa for shorter loops.
A field line can be viewed as a finite charge of magnetic energy, which absorbs and discharges its magnetic field line as it traverses its path to and from the electron source. The magnitude of this energy charge is Plank’s constant, derived from his historic formula E=hf, where f in this case, is the frequency with which the magnetic charge traverses its magnetic field loop. In concept it is analogous to the Radiant Energy Spectrum.
So all electrons are intrinsically magnetic, which means that they are also able to generate an external magnetic field around themselves under an accelerating force.
The magnetic loops attract, repel or deflect one another, but obey Pauli’s exclusion principle, which means they can never occupy the same space, nor can they cross each other.
Their ability to attract and repel comes from the direction of their magnetic field lines. If the magnetic field lines from two particles run in opposite direction alongside each other, then they will attract, but if they run in the same direction they will repel each other. Magnetic lines that meet at a tangent will simply deflect one another, but this gives magnetic field lines and thus their particle, the ability to circumvent each other, the sort of facility required to explain how, say, quantum tunnelling works.
The magnetic lines of force have one extra flexible capability, in that they can be cut and reformed, as can be demonstrated by bringing two permanent magnets together or cutting one in half.
So the electron would no longer rely upon electrostatic attraction to function, but would function as a "magnetic particle”, and as such is could more appropriately be referred to as the ‘magneton’, rather than the ‘revised electron’.
‘Magnetons’ therefore, would no longer be considered to repel each other by their negative electrostatic charges, but would be magnetically influenced by each other in two ways. If their lines of force were in the same direction they would repel each other, but if one magneton was flipped so that its magnetic lines were in the opposite directions, then they would be linked as a pair. This is the sort of capability is required in, say, quantum entanglement and could also explain why electron pairings arise within the different orbit levels of the atom.
There any many other implications of this change from electron to magneton, but this second step is to establish the axioms by which the experimental knowledge that we have gained from years of experimentation can be re-interpreted by the concept of the ‘magneton’, phenomenon such as: radiant energy, quantum tunnelling and quantum entanglement and the structure of atom itself.
I appreciate that this is at the conjectural stage in its development and raises the issue of what you believe is credible. Is it the ‘electric charge’ or its heir apparent the ‘magnetic charge’? Both can be used as models to interpret the world of particles.
Electric charge is clearly in prime position having had years of thought and refinement put into it. But if the shortcomings in electrostatic theory have caught your attention, then perhaps the concept of a ‘magnetic charge’ deserves the chance to move on to stage 3 of your plan.
The hydrogen anion was only presented as an example of your ignorance of the real world. And even if stacking additional electrons to a single proton was a feature of actual electrostatics, and not just your garbled misunderstanding, it wouldn’t negate the existence of the Periodic Table of Elements.
A proton and two electrons has a net negative charge, and repulses other negative charges. It appears you do not realise this extremely basic concept, and if so you have no business quoting any sort of science what so ever.
You’ve done zero demolition other than of your credibility as a scientific thinker.
Stop trawling text-books for quotes you think support your crusade against the concept of charge and open your mind to the possibility that you’re just not understanding physics and chemistry and go back to basics.
Back to basics! As I have pointed out, electrostatic theory as it stands is basically flawed.
Can you not see that if you have an infinite number of positively charged particles scattered throughout the universe and an equal number of negative charged particles also scattered throughout the universe and if each particle has the same timeless magnitude of charge and the defined reach of that charge is infinite in all directions, that if you apply the “principle of superposition”, then every point in space will experience an infinitely attracting force being cancelled out by an infinitely repelling force. So, all points in space will experience a resulting null force. Even the atom is not isolated from external electrostatic forces, so electrostatic theory, in its present form, cannot function within the atom.
You may not like it, but you must admit that the concept of a ‘magnetic atom’ functioning under the control of magnetic forces is new and interesting and opens up new avenues of thought.
No. Really. There are so many flaws in the above it could almost be set as an undergraduate tutorial question to enumerate the flaws.
Last time I looked there are not an infinite number of particles. If there were it would be seriously squeezy here. So, you might like to start with a point of view that does not involve an infinite density of particles. Hint - don’t use infinity more than once - not unless you are sure they are the same infinity. You implicitly used an infinite space to get your infinite number of particles. You can’t do that. Density of particles is undefined if you do.
You also don’t seem to understand the inverse square law. Let alone quantum theory. But inverse square should be your starting point.
You might also want to apply your same logic to gravity. Infinite reach of gravity across infinite space. Clearly this must result in a perfectly symmetric attraction, and thus zero force. In the same manner, your logic predicts that it is impossible for the Earth to attract us to its surface.
Rather than prose, you would be much better served by actually doing some simple mathematics. I would expect any reasonably smart teenager to be able to work thought this.
If your theory of a magnetic atom has any legs, you need to actually show some mathematics. Write out even the most simple definitions of how it works, and show it predicts something. I suggested that you show how your theory correctly predicts the wavelengths of light emitted by an excited hydrogen atom earlier. Challenge still stands. Electrostatic theory does this, and gets good numbers - ones that agree with reality. Show us yours doing the same.
No, you’ve pointed out that you believe it to be flawed. Everyone who has an understanding of physics and has read your musing so far have come to the conclusion that it’s your understanding that is flawed, rather than electrostatic theory.
No, here you’re exhibiting severely flawed understanding of the basic theory. The reach of the influence is infinite, but the magnitude of it falls off with the square of the distance between two charges, so particles infinitely far apart have truly negligible influence.
The electron and proton in a hydrogen atom in empty space are so many magnitudes closer to each other than they are to any other charged particle that the influence from those other particles would be negligible even if the positive and negative charges didn’t cancel out.
Now since the electron exists in a cloud around the proton, you have to be really close to notice the separation of charge in the combined entity, but when the atoms are really close there will be noticable forces, which are responsible for intra- and intermolecular forces.
I find it fascinating trying to find the flaws when someone has as warped and understanding of basic physics as you do, but as with all other problems, first you have to admit to yourself that you have one. Are you ready to admit you don’t actually understand the basics?
Your description above is so strange that I’m thinking perhaps you’re under the delusion that the infinite attractive and infinite repulsive force (neither of which exist, for the reasons I’ve explained above, and don’t make sense even if you ignore those explanations) doesn’t result in zero influence but in some sort of restraining field.
No. Atoms are already influenced by the real and well described magnetic forces of ordinary physics. Your addition of vague and contradictory new “magnetics” to remove flaws in existing theory that only you can see, do not open up new avenues of thought. Or they do, but they’re not all that interesting, they are more along the lines of “what odd miscomprehensions are required to dream up these ideas?”
Magnecule theory and HHO (aka Brown’s Gas)
:rolleyes:
I’m reminded of the comment from someone far, far, smarter than I. Paraphrasing as best I can:
“Is it right? Heck, that stuff’s not even wrong!”
This thread is entertaining in a head-against-wall sort of way, but IMO we’re collectively not making progress in the Fight Against Ignorance here.
I’ve already been (rightly) chastised by the authorities for what amounts to junior modding in this thread so I’ll say no more.
I think it’s time to wrap this post up, but I will take away two quotes, just because they made me laugh. The author knows who he is and it is evident that we have the same depreciating sense of humour, but a teacher he will never be.
“This thread is entertaining in a head-against-wall sort of way, but IMO we’re collectively not making progress in the ‘Fight Against Ignorance’ here.”
“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 surprisingly for me, amongst all that writing, nobody seemed to strike a fatal blow. If they had I would have acknowledged it. There was a lot of huffing and puffing around how clever our physicists are and some withering remarks about my ignorance on detail, but collectively you seemed rattled at the ‘conceptual level’ and hell bent upon defending your territory. Perversely this encouraged me to ride the taunts waiting for someone to deliver the ‘coup de grace’. But as I said it never came.
However, one message stood out as the most constructive one for me, (and again he will know who he is) in that it was a specific challenge and I have no problems with accepting that any new theory must match the success of the current theory in understanding particle physics and deliver more.
“If your theory of a magnetic atom has any legs, you need to actually show some mathematics. Write out even the most simple definitions of how it works, and show it predicts something. I suggested that you show how your theory correctly predicts the wavelengths of light emitted by an excited hydrogen atom earlier. Challenge still stands. Electrostatic theory does this, and gets good numbers - ones that agree with reality. Show us yours doing the same.”
What I will deliver is a new way of thinking about how and why the atom was built into the structure that it has and therefore how it functions the way that it does. But a lot of the maths will be the same and I don’t intend to duplicate it. Where new maths is required, I’ll leave that to more competent mathematicians than myself.
But I think I need to let things simmer down a little and when I feel the time is right to take up the challenge, I’ll make a new post. You will not be obliged to respond to it, but I will miss you all if you don’t.
P.S. It is not Ruggero Santilli’s vision.
Nonsense. Complete, absolute nonsense. You’ve insulted every physicist in this thread.
Nonsense. Complete, absolute nonsense. You’ve now insulted every physicist in recorded history.
What I proposed was a sincerity test as much as anything else. If you can’t provide the mathematics you don’t actually understand the thing you are proposing. If you can’t cast it in concrete mathematics it isn’t actually defined. Not in any useful sense. Go all the way back to Newton. There are popular accounts of his contributions - gravity, motion. What many don’t appreciate is that all of these were accompanied with clear mathematics. It was these mathematical descriptions that embodied Newton’s theories - not the prose. Maxwell did the same with electromagnetics. He didn’t witter on in prose. Nobody would have bothered with him. He encapsulated his work in clear unambiguous mathematics. Useful, predictive, and testable mathematics.
It is clear that you don’t actually possess more than lower high school mathematics. You don’t understand enough of the theories you are attempting to claim are flawed to know that your criticisms are based upon incomplete understanding of the mathematics. You cherry pick individual sentences from introductory descriptions of the science, without going to the trouble of following up on the actual science that will be discussed later that addresses exactly these questions.
Mathematics is the language of physics. Not prose. If you have no mathematical description of your theory you have no theory. You don’t, and you don’t.
One more time: Atoms are not classical electromagnetic objects. It’s not hard to solve the Schroedinger equation for the (classical) hydrogen atom (and, in fact, it’s done in every single intro quantum mechanics class) and write down its eigenstates explicitly; none of these involve the proton turning into an all-consuming black hole eating the universe.
Seems legit.
Sweet merciful crap, I don’t even know where to start with this. I don’t think I’ll even bother.