Relativity+

[Farsight]

I'm John Duffield, and a few weeks back I was talking to a guy who's a member of the ISST. I was looking something up and bumped into a discussion here about causality, FTL, and time travel, so I explained why time travel is science fiction. I then got sucked into backup details that rather hijacked the thread and took us into particle physics and the standard model. apologies. Now I've been challenged to present the geometry of the electromagnetic field. I expect this to lead on to the photon and the quantum of quantum mechanics, an explanation of how pair production works, and maybe the standard model with gravity.

http://gegenschein.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/standard-model.png?w=400&h=286

I don't know if you all know, but Einstein won his Nobel prize primarily for his 1905 photoelectric paper "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light". This established the quantum nature of light. Another paper in this his "mirabalis" year was "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". This is electrodynamics and refers to Maxwell, but is considered to be Einstein's special relativity paper. Another important paper was "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" concerning mass and energy. This is where E=mc2 comes from. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers for more, but note it's all rather a mixed bag, and Einstein covered rather more than some appreciate. He’s mainly remember for gravity and The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity (3.6Mbytes) (http://www.alberteinstein.info/gallery/pdf/CP6Doc30_English_pp146-200.pdf). IMHO people tend to forget that he was in on the ground floor of quantum mechanics in 1905, and still centre stage at the 1927 Solvay Conference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_Conference):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Solvay_conference_1927.jpg/550px-Solvay_conference_1927.jpg

This meeting discussed the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, and Einstein essentially lost the argument. After this he was still lauded by the media and public, but became somewhat detached from the scientific mainstream. Quantum mechanics morphed into quantum field theory, quantum electrodynamics, and so on, but Einstein didn’t play much of a part. Instead he became something of a trophy for Princeton, working largely alone trying to unify electromagnetism and gravity to come up with a unified field theory. He died trying.

The point of all this is that electromagnetism was very important to Einstein. He had pictures of Maxwell and Faraday on the wall of his study, along with Newton. When you read the original material you get a better idea of where Einstein was coming from. For example in Relativity: the Special and General Theory (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5001) he said:

..according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position."

Most people don't appreciate the significance of this, and don’t go back to the original German which reads die Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit des Lichtes mit dem Orte variiert. Put it through google translate (http://translate.google.com/#de|en|die%20Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit%20des%20L ichtes%20mit%20dem%20Orte%20variiert) to find out what he really said. It isn't what the textbooks say he said, and if you understand impedance you know how important this is. It's the same for Maxwell. Read his original work and it's very different to the textbook version. "Maxwell's Equations" aren't Maxwell's equations, because Heaviside rewrote them in vector form. When you read Newton’s Opticks there’s more. That's when you start feeling skeptical about what you've been taught, and start doing your own research. You find out about Einstein and Cartan and torsion, about Einstein and Gödel and time, about Maxwell and Kelvin and vortices, and about physicists and papers you’ve never heard of before.

It takes you places, and along the way, it tells you about the electromagnetic field. See what you make of this:

[Farsight]

Most people have heard of Minkowski’s Space and Time paper from 1908. They’re aware that it constituted an important development for special relativity. However very few people notice a little paragraph two pages from the back:

"Then in the description of the field produced by the electron we see that the separation of the field into electric and magnetic force is a relative one with regard to the underlying time axis; the most perspicuous way of describing the two forces together is on a certain analogy with the wrench in mechanics, though the analogy is not complete".

You scratch your chin and wonder about this, then you read some more Maxwell. In particular you read On Physical Lines of Force. It’s on wikipedia, see page 53 (
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:On_Physical_Lines_of_Force.pd f&page=53):

A motion of translation along an axis cannot produce a rotation about that axis unless it meets with some special mechanism, like that of a screw

Now look at the right-hand rule on English wikipedia. For a current in a wire, your thumb points in the direction of the current flow, and your fingers “are curled to match the curvature and direction of the motion or the magnetic field”.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Right_hand_rule.png/180px-Right_hand_rule.png

But note it’s one field, it’s the electromagnetic field, not separate electric fields and magnetic fields. Jefimenko's equations ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefimenko's_equations) are a useful reminder in this respect. The electromagnetic field is a dual entity, there’s only one field there. Moving through an electric field doesn’t cause a magnetic field to be generated, because as Minkowski said, it’s the electromagnetic field, and it exerts force in two ways. What does it look like? It doesn’t actually look like anything, but iron filings on a piece of paper tells you that you can visualize a field. Note though that iron filings only show you a slice through a “magnetic” field, and you need to see the real-deal electromagnetic field in three dimensions. Ever done any metalwork? I have. I’ve got a variety of reamers in my toolbox, bought as a job lot from a stall in Saffron Walden years back. This kind of thing:

http://www.glue-it.com/model-engineering/general-information/glossary/r/pictures/reamer-001.jpg

I pick one up and look at it from the top and it reminds me of an electric vector field, like this one from Andrew Duffy’s PY106 physics course material at http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/ :

http://buphy.bu.edu/~duffy/PY106/2e.GIF

If you’ve got a reamer, grab it in your right fist, put your left thumb on the bottom of it, and push upwards. It turns. You’re emulating the right-hand rule for the current in the wire. The reamer is giving you a picture of the electromagnetic field around a vertical column of electrons. Pushing upwards is emulating the current flow, and the rotation you can feel is the magnetic curl or rot, which is short for rotor.

Minkowski referred to a wrench and Maxwell referred to a screw because the electromagnetic field really is like this. It’s essentially a “twist” field. Motion through it results in “turn”. Or vice-versa. Turn a screw with a screwdriver and you get forward motion, so you can induce a current up the wire. Start with the forward motion like with a pump-action screwdriver and you get rotation. This is why we have dynamos and generators, because this is how the electromagnetic field is.

What does it look like for a single electron? That reamer depicts the electromagnetic field for a column of electrons at an imaginary cylindrical surface some distance round the wire. You have to use a fatter reamer to visualize the electromagnetic field for a larger cylindrical surface. Then to match the way the field diminishes with distance, the degree of twist has to reduce. So imagine a continuous series of fatter and fatter reamers, all occupying the same space, and take a horizontal slice through it. You’re also taking a horizontal slice through an electron’s electromagnetic field, and it looks like this:

http://www.jbum.com/pixmagic/pinwheel.jpg

That’s what the electron’s electromagnetic field would look like if you sliced through it from any direction. It’s isotropic. Let your eyes linger on it. Does it remind you of a whirlpool? A vortex? Ever heard of a vorton? Now maybe you understand what Maxwell was groping for with his vortexes ( http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_en-GBGB240GB240&q=maxwell+vortex). He thought an electromagnetic field was a sea of vortices, and particles moved through it. But he got it back to front.

Let's see how we get on with this before I start talking about photons.

[ben m]

That’s what the electron’s electromagnetic field would look like if you sliced through it from any direction. I

No it's not. The electromagnetic field of an electron looks like a diverging electric field and a dipole magnetic field.

[Kwalish Kid]

The problem with this thread, as one who has seen this general theory before could predict, is that it is almost entirely divorced from science. How does this "present the geometry of the electromagnetic field"? How does this relate to a single experiment that one could actually do with electromagnetism?
Most people have heard of Minkowski’s Space and Time paper from 1908. They’re aware that it constituted an important development for special relativity. However very few people notice a little paragraph two pages from the back:
The reason that people are unfamiliar with the passage is that few people outside of those who actually study the history of the science actually read the paper. There are far better means of studying relativity theory, means that actually teach how to relate the theory to experiments, than to read the original papers.

And why would we think that Minkowski is referring to some theory of twisting, when he is probably referring to considering a wrench to be a resultant wrench, the sum of a number of wrenches. Two systems of forces are equipollent if they have the same resultant wrench and thus they produce the same effect on rigid body motion.

Note that the above explanation actually invokes the use of wrench in classical mechanics whereas the Farsight explanation does not.
Moving through an electric field doesn’t cause a magnetic field to be generated, because as Minkowski said, it’s the electromagnetic field, and it exerts force in two ways.
What Minkowski says, if one bothers to follow the mathematics he uses, is that the electric and magnetic components of the field are determined by the system of coordinates that one uses.

In addition, if one bothers to read further into Minkowski's text rather than pick out one passage out of context that looks like it might possibly support a particular point, then one sees that Minkowski makes this point in the written word later when he points out that in 4-D spacetime, the laws of electromagnetism show their "full simplicity" and that they only become complicated when "a three dimensional space is forced upon us."

Now before Farsight begins his usual spiel about how physics isn't mathematics, I think it is instructive to turn to the end of the Minkowski paper he has cited:
In the development of its mathematical consequences there will be ample suggestions for experimental verifications of the postulate [underlying Special Relativity], which will suffice to conciliate even those to whom the abandonment of old-established views is unsympathetic or painful, but the idea of a pre-established harmony between pure mathematics and physics.
If Farsight could demonstrate how his theory could produce predictions that would match experiments, then his theory would be believable. So far he has been unwilling or unable to present such predictions.

[edd]

I don't think you're right, Farsight, pretty much as ben m says. It's hard to tell though as I don't really know what you think that last spiral is supposed to be. If I dropped another electron next to the first, how would the two move? How does that fit with the spiral pattern you've put up there? And how does it fit with the non-spiral electric field directly above it? What would I have to do to measure that spiral?

[ctamblyn]

For the posters here with access to Misner, Thorne and Wheeler: in Figure 4.5 (page 109) there is a rather beautiful illustration of the dual of the e/m field tensor due to a point charge at rest (well, a constant-time slice through it). I tried looking for a similar diagram for the electron's field - i.e. point charge plus magnetic dipole - but have not had much luck. Has anyone here come across such a thing? Since we're being asked to visualise the electron's field I thought something like this might be helpful, but if not then on worries.

[Reality Check]

I'm John Duffield, and a few weeks back I was talking to a guy who's a member of the ISST. The point of all this is that electromagnetism was very important to Einstein. He had pictures of Maxwell and Faraday on the wall of his study, along with Newton. When you read the original material you get a better idea of where Einstein was coming from. For example in Relativity: the Special and General Theory (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5001) he said:
Originally Posted by Einstein
..according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position

Most people don't appreciate the significance of this, and don’t go back to the original German which reads die Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit des Lichtes mit dem Orte variiert. Put it through google translate (http://translate.google.com/#de|en|die%20Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit%20des%20L ichtes%20mit%20dem%20Orte%20variiert) to find out what he really said.
A couple of general points, Farsight.
Citing a quote from Einstein (or any other authority) as the basis for a scientific theory is the logical fallacy of argument from authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority).

Secondly the full paragraph from the book (intended for a general audience) is:

Originally Posted by Einstein (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/relat10.txt)
In the second place our result shows that, according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Now we might think that as a consequence of this, the special theory of relativity and with it the whole theory of relativity would be laid in the dust. But in reality this is not the case. We can only conclude that the special theory of relativity cannot claim an unlinlited domain of validity ; its results hold only so long as we are able to disregard the
influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena (e.g. of light).

There is nothing in this paragraph that needs a replacement for SR and GR.

I notice that Einstein is comparing SR and GR. I suspect that he is talking about the velocity of propagation of light varying with position in SR when compared to GR. This is confirmed by the start of the section where he states "Let us suppose, for instance, that we know the space-time " course " for any natural process whatsoever, as regards the manner in which it takes place in the Galileian domain relative to a Galileian body of reference K.".

[INRM]

If you had the effects of gravity factored in with quantum mechanics and the standard model you'd have a theory of everything

[Myriad]

What does it look like for a single electron? That reamer depicts the electromagnetic field for a column of electrons at an imaginary cylindrical surface some distance round the wire. You have to use a fatter reamer to visualize the electromagnetic field for a larger cylindrical surface. Then to match the way the field diminishes with distance, the degree of twist has to reduce. So imagine a continuous series of fatter and fatter reamers, all occupying the same space, and take a horizontal slice through it. You’re also taking a horizontal slice through an electron’s electromagnetic field, and it looks like this:

http://www.jbum.com/pixmagic/pinwheel.jpg

That’s what the electron’s electromagnetic field would look like if you sliced through it from any direction. It’s isotropic.


That doesn't seem geometrically possible. What if I looked at the electron from exactly the opposite side, but made the same slice (that is, the slice is in the same plane)? Wouldn't the spirals then be going the other way?

Then, suppose I move continuously around from one side to the other, examining perpendicular slices as I go. Wouldn't the image have to transform continuously from the clockwise pattern on one side to the counterclockwise pattern on the other?

Respectfully,
Myriad

[Kwalish Kid]

There is nothing in this paragraph that needs a replacement for SR and GR.
See, you've just fallen into his trap. He will now claim that he doesn't actually have a theory and that he's simply explaining SR & GR how Einstein understood them.

[ctamblyn]

The hypnotic spiral pattern hurts my eyes. Seriously.
What does it represent? The electric field of an electron doesn't look anything like that - the lines of E should be straight and radial. Nor does the diagram look like the lines of B in a magnetic dipole field. I'm more than a little puzzled.

[Reality Check]

See, you've just fallen into his trap. He's will now claim that he doesn't actually have a theory and that he's simply explaining SR & GR how Einstein understood them.
So Farsight is a medium channeling the ghost of Einstein :rolleyes:!

Seriously I hope (probably in vain) that he realizes that science is not the opinions or beliefs of a few authorities. How Einstein understood SR and GR does not matter. What interpretations Farsight makes of the opinions of Einstein do not matter.

The match of SR and GR to the real universe is what makes them science. Mathematics is the language that allows these matches to be made. So far all we have seen from Farsight is pretty pictures and vague descriptions.

[Farsight]

I don't think you're right, Farsight, pretty much as ben m says. It's hard to tell though as I don't really know what you think that last spiral is supposed to be. If I dropped another electron next to the first, how would the two move?The two electrons would move apart. Remember they're dynamical entities, like two vortexes. In fact you can emulate this with Falaco solitons in a pond.

http://www.ussdiscovery.com/FalacoSystem.gif

Dip a plate halfway into the water and stroke gently forward while lifting it clear, and you make a “U-tube” double whirlpool. Create another one angled towards the first, and repeat with various aims. When the left-hand-side of one double whirlpool is near the left-hand-side of the other, the two similar whirlpools keep clear of one another. When the left-hand-side of one double whirlpool is near the right-hand-side of the other, the two opposite whirlpools move together. That's essentially attraction and repulsion. If you aim two double whirlpools straight at one another, face on, they meet and merge and disappear. (This is best in a shallow pond with muddy bottom, when you see a surprisingly energetic kick-up). That's essentially annihilation. It's just a fluid analogy and it's by no means perfect, but it gets across the dynamical entity concept - there's this round thing there in the water that's made out of movement.

How does that fit with the spiral pattern you've put up there? And how does it fit with the non-spiral electric field directly above it? What would I have to do to measure that spiral?The spiral pattern is what you'd get if you tried to use a floor-polisher on a rubber sheet. The non-spiral electric field depiction shows vectors, and they tell you how your dropped-in electron moves. I'm not sure about measuring the spiral. What you measure is motion, and that depends on the initial relative motion of your electrons. If you start with a vertical stack of electrons moving upwards, your test electron doesn't move away, and instead spirals around the "magnetic field lines".

http://www.mdahlem.net/img/astro/elgyro.jpg

[Farsight]

A couple of general points, Farsight.
Citing a quote from Einstein (or any other authority) as the basis for a scientific theory is the logical fallacy of argument from authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority).The points I'm making are based on observable scientific evidence, which some dismiss on the authority of their textbook. The references to Einstein etc are to show that I'm not making this up. No, there's nothing in that paragraph that demands a replacement for GR. Note though that GR "subsumed" SR.

Seriously I hope (probably in vain) that he realizes that science is not the opinions or beliefs of a few authorities. How Einstein understood SR and GR does not matter. What interpretations Farsight makes of the opinions of Einstein do not matter. The match of SR and GR to the real universe is what makes them science. Mathematics is the language that allows these matches to be made. So far all we have seen from Farsight is pretty pictures and vague descriptions.Opinions and beliefs don't matter. Scientific evidence matters, and mathematics.

[Kwalish Kid]

Opinions and beliefs don't matter. Scientific evidence matters, and mathematics.
So show a little evidence! People in this thread do not believe anything about your spiral pictures because when people measure electromagnetic fields, they get something far, far different from your spiral pictures. Show us how we can measure these fields in a way that produces something like what you have shown.

So far, all you have offered is arguments from authority and claims that you have evidence without ever demonstrating these claims.

[ben m]

The two electrons would move apart. Remember they're dynamical entities, like two vortexes. In fact you can emulate this with Falaco solitons in a pond.

Sorry, Farsight, but after 100 years of relativistic, quantum, and high-energy experiments there is no evidence whatsoever that electrons are "dynamical entities" of this sort, and plenty of evidence that they're not. To start with, dynamical waves like these do not obey Lorentz invariance, while all observed particles do.


The spiral pattern is what you'd get if you tried to use a floor-polisher on a rubber sheet.


But you said it represented the field of an electron. Why did you say that?


If you start with a vertical stack of electrons moving upwards, your test electron doesn't move away, and instead spirals around the "magnetic field lines".

Don't get confused by this---remember that that "magnetic field line" is a shorthand for the presence of large numbers of moving charges somewhere nearby. The spiral is the normal, expected behavior of a normal electron (or any particle which generates those outward-pointing electric fields) feeling the force due to those nearby moving charges.

[Farsight]

If you had the effects of gravity factored in with quantum mechanics and the standard model you'd have a theory of everythingThat's what they call it. I don't like the phrase myself, I prefer unified model, but even so all I've really got is a few pointers that I've picked up from various sources to sketch a possible route forward.

That doesn't seem geometrically possible. What if I looked at the electron from exactly the opposite side, but made the same slice (that is, the slice is in the same plane)? Wouldn't the spirals then be going the other way?Yes, but it isn't an ideal depiction. It's "flat", and the electromagnetic field isn't.

Then, suppose I move continuously around from one side to the other, examining perpendicular slices as I go. Wouldn't the image have to transform continuously from the clockwise pattern on one side to the counterclockwise pattern on the other?This gets tricky, because there's two rotations here. If you look at a clock you'd normally say the hands are moving clockwise. However if it was transparent and you looked at it from the back you'd say the hands were moving anticlockwise. But if I spin the clock like a coin, you can't say the hands are going clockwise or anticlockwise. Re the spiral picture, for a better concept, assume you've got a ball of wax along with many pieces of wire. Bend each piece of wire into a Fibonacci spiral, then lie it flat on your desk and bend it up into a Fibonnaci spiral in an orthogonal direction. So it's chiral and "curly". Now stick the wires into the ball working your way around each meridian.

The hypnotic spiral pattern hurts my eyes. Seriously.
What does it represent? The electric field of an electron doesn't look anything like that - the lines of E should be straight and radial. Nor does the diagram look like the lines of B in a magnetic dipole field. I'm more than a little puzzled.The electromagnetic field of an electron. I showed the radial electric vectors in my second post. Can we come back to the electron magnetic dipole moment later? For now consider that it's of no concern, and consider this gedankenexperiment: you are very small, with a vertical stack of electrons motionless in front of you. You have an electron-tipped wand with which you can feel the electromagnetic field. Take it slowly and you can feel out a cylinder of repulsion. Now swipe the wand down past the stack of electrons, and the end of your wand moves in circles. You're still feeling the electromagnetic field. There aren't two fields there, only one, and it exerts force in two different ways.

[ben m]

Now swipe the wand down past the stack of electrons, and the end of your wand moves in circles.

No it doesn't. The magnetic *field* is pointing in circles, but that makes you feel a repulsive force---the force due to a magnetic field does not point along the magnetic field, but orthogonal to it. (In vector terms F = qv x B; that's a cross product.)

[ctamblyn]

If you start with a vertical stack of electrons moving upwards, your test electron doesn't move away, and instead spirals around the "magnetic field lines".

http://www.mdahlem.net/img/astro/elgyro.jpg
Further to ben m's post, the vertical B-field you show in this picture does indeed lead to the depicted electron moving in a spiral, but this B-field is not what you get from a vertical stack of electrons moving upwards, which would instead give B-field lines going in circles around the current, and the force on the electron would point away from the line. It's fairly simple to understand if you transform to the rest frame of the line charge, in which the e/m field is purely electric and points away from the line.

[Reality Check]

Opinions and beliefs don't matter. Scientific evidence matters, and mathematics.
That is correct.
I am eagerly waiting for the mathematics behind your theory (so far I have only seen pretty pictures). Some scientific evidence would be nice too.

[RussDill]

A) Stop mentioning scientists, what they did, when, why, what they said, etc. All useless fluff. The are not oracles or prophets like some sort of religion. Instead mention theories, experiments, equations, etc.

B) Please to show an experiment that has a behavior that is not properly predicted by current models, but is properly predicted by your model. The proper math is necessary here. Its ok to just start with some thought experiments.

C) If your model predicts the same thing as current models, show how your model has less assumptions than current models, eg, use your model to predict the mass of an electron for us.

Otherwise, continue to babble incoherently and without any relevance whatsoever.

[Farsight]

Further to ben m's post, the vertical B-field you show in this picture does indeed lead to the depicted electron moving in a spiral, but this B-field is not what you get from a vertical stack of electrons moving upwards, which would instead give B-field lines going in circles around the current, and the force on the electron would point away from the line.Yes, as per the right-hand-rule diagram I showed earlier:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Right_hand_rule.png/220px-Right_hand_rule.png

The typical result is braided galactic jets, where two streams of charged particles moving at different velocities spiral around one another.


RealityCheck: this isn't my theory, what I'm trying to get across here is the dualism of the electromagnetic field, as per Minkowski's wrench and Maxwell's screw. It isn't two distinct vector fields, it's one field. The motion of the electron that is described by vectors is the result of the field disposition and the dynamical nature of the electron itself. See the wiki page re dualism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field#Dynamics_of_the_electromagne tic_field

"In the past, electrically charged objects were thought to produce two types of field associated with their charge property. An electric field is produced when the charge is stationary with respect to an observer measuring the properties of the charge, and a magnetic field (as well as an electric field) is produced when the charge moves (creating an electric current) with respect to this observer. Over time, it was realized that the electric and magnetic fields are better thought of as two parts of a greater whole — the electromagnetic field."

The scientific evidence is in electron properties and how the electron moves in an electromagnetic field.


RussDill: referring to Einstein, Minkowski and Maxwell is not "useless fluff". I've mentioned theories such as relativity and quantum electrodynamics and Jefimenko's equations. I'll show an experiment that has a behaviour that is not properly predicted by current models - pair production, and I'll show you some proper math for the electron. No, I can't predict the mass of the electron, but I can tell you why the fine structure constant takes the value it does, and why it's a running constant. But you'll doubtless dismiss it all.

[Tubbythin]

I'll show an experiment that has a behaviour that is not properly predicted by current models - pair production,
Huh?!?


and I'll show you some proper math for the electron. No, I can't predict the mass of the electron, but I can tell you why the fine structure constant takes the value it does, and why it's a running constant. But you'll doubtless dismiss it all.
I wasn't aware we needed another explanation why it is a running constant.

[Reality Check]

RealityCheck: this isn't my theory, what I'm trying to get across here is the dualism of the electromagnetic field, as per Minkowski's wrench and Maxwell's screw. It isn't two distinct vector fields, it's one field. The motion of the electron that is described by vectors is the result of the field disposition and the dynamical nature of the electron itself. See the wiki page re dualism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field#Dynamics_of_the_electromagne tic_field

That is standard physics . The electromagnetic field is a single field made up of 2 components (the electric field and the magnetic field).

This does not excuse the fact that your image is not of the electron’s electromagnetic field. But then you admitted that the image is notthing to do with electrons:
Originally Posted by Farsight http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=5703975#post5703975)
The spiral pattern is what you'd get if you tried to use a floor-polisher on a rubber sheet.




The scientific evidence is in electron properties and how the electron moves in an electromagnetic field.

And again - standard physics. Well known and treateed by the existing scientific theories.

Why are you telling everyone what any one with a basic science education already knows?

I suggest that if you want to have a thread about standard electromagnetic theory then you start a new one.

[Reality Check]

I'll show an experiment that has a behaviour that is not properly predicted by current models - pair production, and I'll show you some proper math for the electron.
Farsight:
Do you mean that current models do not predict pair production at all?
Or is there some aspect of pair production that is not seen in current models?

In either case a full description of this assertion with the supporting evidence (e.g. citations to the experiments that show the discrepancies with theory) would be appreciated.

[ctamblyn]

OK, so I take it that you're retracting this statement:
If you start with a vertical stack of electrons moving upwards, your test electron doesn't move away, and instead spirals around the "magnetic field lines".

http://www.mdahlem.net/img/astro/elgyro.jpg

[ctamblyn]

No, I can't predict the mass of the electron, but I can tell you why the fine structure constant takes the value it does, and why it's a running constant. But you'll doubtless dismiss it all.
You can show why the fine structure constant is approximately 1/137? I'd be very interested in seeing that.

[Kwalish Kid]

RealityCheck: this isn't my theory, what I'm trying to get across here is the dualism of the electromagnetic field, as per Minkowski's wrench and Maxwell's screw.
Did I call this or not?

Like always, Farsight will dodge answering a serious question that might actually provide some physical insight. No chance of getting any mathematics or experimental evidence in this thread.

[ben m]

Yes, as per the right-hand-rule diagram I showed earlier:


The diagram shows what the magnetic field lines look like near a column of moving charge. However, your discussion of the charged "wand" claimed that the force on the wand points in a circle, i.e. in the direction of the field lines. This second claim is incorrect. Do you understand the difference?

[ben m]

I'll show an experiment that has a behaviour that is not properly predicted by current models - pair production,

Let me guess---either:

a) This discrepancy arises when you yourself attempt to make the "prediction", and is never described as a discrepancy in the mainstream literature? If this is the case, Farsight, then I suspect the "discrepancy" is between your misevaluation of the model and what the model actually says.

b) You found some 1960s paper reporting a 1% discrepancy on something. You did not bother looking for a multi-experiment average (which is how you tell the difference between "current theory is fundamentally unable to explain electron-boron scattering" and "the cyclotron is malfunctioning at the University of Ottery St. Catchpole"

[RussDill]

Let me guess---either:

a) This discrepancy arises when you yourself attempt to make the "prediction", and is never described as a discrepancy in the mainstream literature? If this is the case, Farsight, then I suspect the "discrepancy" is between your misevaluation of the model and what the model actually says.

b) You found some 1960s paper reporting a 1% discrepancy on something. You did not bother looking for a multi-experiment average (which is how you tell the difference between "current theory is fundamentally unable to explain electron-boron scattering" and "the cyclotron is malfunctioning at the University of Ottery St. Catchpole"

You'd be wrong, because it'd be c) The claim of the standard model that the electron is a fundamental particle, when in fact, it is a photon. Isn't it clear that pair production totally and completely disproves that?

[RussDill]

RussDill: referring to Einstein, Minkowski and Maxwell is not "useless fluff". I've mentioned theories such as relativity and quantum electrodynamics and Jefimenko's equations.

Again, you are confusing the theory with the scientist. Theories stand and must stand alone. If a theory somehow does not stand alone, but depends on the greatness of the creator of the theory, its a crappy theory. Every theorist has come up with plenty of false starts, dead ends, etc, some that take decades to run down.

It's pretty dumb to claim that because SR and GR are well tested, and Einstein came up with them, that everything Einstein writes or speaks about the topic is correct. There is no logic than that, but it seems to be what you are claiming.

I'll show an experiment that has a behaviour that is not properly predicted by current models - pair production, and I'll show you some proper math for the electron.

That'll be a pretty amazing thing. Just remember, your own interpretations have no meaning or importance. The only thing that matters is what we can measure. I'll get the nobel committee on the line.

No, I can't predict the mass of the electron, but I can tell you why the fine structure constant takes the value it does, and why it's a running constant. But you'll doubtless dismiss it all.

That'll be another amazing trick. For 94 years, no one has found anything that produces it, much less explains how they produced it. You'll need to match 1/137.035999679(94).

If you can produce neither in the next few days, is it safe to say that we can laugh you off the forum.

[Farsight]

That is standard physics . The electromagnetic field is a single field made up of 2 components (the electric field and the magnetic field).Yes, it's standard, but many people who think they understand physics don't understand that it's one field, and don't know about quaternions and how Heaviside replaced them with vectors. I don't mean to sound too picky, but there are two aspects rather than components. If you're motionless with respect to the source of the field, you see it as an electric field. If you're not, you see it as a magnetic field.

This does not excuse the fact that your image is not of the electron’s electromagnetic field. But then you admitted that the image is nothing to do with electrons:That's the best image I could find to get it across for a flat slice. Think about the right hand rule. The current in the wire is the same situation as you moving downwards past a vertical stack of electrons. Maxwell's screw analogy wasn't for nothing.

Do you mean that current models do not predict pair production at all? Or is there some aspect of pair production that is not seen in current models?The latter. They don't explain how it works.

In either case a full description of this assertion with the supporting evidence (e.g. citations to the experiments that show the discrepancies with theory) would be appreciated.I don't know of any discrepancies, and I'll describe it in full later. First I need to get the electromagnetic field across, and give you that grasp of the wrench/screw/reamer twist & turn concept with respect to the right-hand rule. People seem to have trouble with three-dimensional geometry like this, and for some reason it needs hands-on personal experience. Find a reamer or something like a drill bit and push it up into your right fist. Also try out the Falaco soliton via plate-dipping.

[Farsight]

OK, so I take it that you're retracting this statement: If you start with a vertical stack of electrons moving upwards, your test electron doesn't move away, and instead spirals around the "magnetic field lines". No. I might have expressed it better, but think about a solenoid. The electrons in the wire are spiralling around the magnetic field lines. Now chuck an electron into the solenoid, and its path is helical.

You can show why the fine structure constant is approximately 1/137? I'd be very interested in seeing that.It's to do with kissing numbers. If electromagnetic fields were one-dimensional, an electron's field would extend in only two directions, so one electron would exert half its field on half the field of another, like this: ←○→ ←○→ . Hence if you pushed them together they'd "couple" with a quarter of their total field strength, and the fine structure constant would take a value of 1/4. If however electromagnetic fields were two-dimensional, you could push electrons together like pennies to form a hexagon.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Kissing-2d.svg/190px-Kissing-2d.svg.png

Each electron would repel another with a sixth of its field in any given direction, and the fine structure constant would take a value of 1/36. Scale it up another dimension and you can push twelve spheres around a central sphere. Each electron repels another with about a twelfth of its field in any given direction. However the fine structure constant isn't 1/144 because the spheres don't quite fit. They don't fit snugly like the pennies. There gaps between them.

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/geometry/kissing/3d.jpg

To appreciate this, it's best to think of an icosahedron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron), with a sphere centered on each of the twelve vertices. If each edge is 1 unit long, the radius of one large sphere just enclosing the icosahedron would be √(10+2√5)/4 or 0.9510565163. This means for our twelve spheres to touch, the central sphere has to be smaller. But it isn't, and that's why they don't fit snugly. There's a gap between the surrounding spheres of circa 5%. If you were the last sphere to join the icosahedron you'd be able to see more than a twelfth of the central sphere on account of this gap. In similar vein an electron "sees" more than a twelfth of another electron when it repels it with its field. Each electron repels another with circa 1/11.7th of its field, which is more than 1/12th. One 11.7th of one field is working against one 11.7th of another, so the combined coupling factor is circa 1/137th. The "running" aspect is crucial when it comes to gravity, but's that's one for another day.

[Farsight]

The diagram shows what the magnetic field lines look like near a column of moving charge. However, your discussion of the charged "wand" claimed that the force on the wand points in a circle, i.e. in the direction of the field lines. This second claim is incorrect. Do you understand the difference?I didn't claim that, that's your misinterpretation. Read what I said.

Let me guess---either:

a) This discrepancy arises...

b) You found some 1960s paper reporting a 1% discrepancy... No, don't guess. I didn't say anything about a discrepancy. Mainstream models do not adequately describe the electron, or the photon, or how pair production actually works.

[Kwalish Kid]

People seem to have trouble with three-dimensional geometry like this, and for some reason it needs hands-on personal experience. Find a reamer or something like a drill bit and push it up into your right fist.
The problem is not with other people, the problem is that your example doesn't fit the facts, as many people have pointed out. If you want to support your case, show the numbers. Show the equations.
No, don't guess. I didn't say anything about a discrepancy. Mainstream models do not adequately describe the electron, or the photon, or how pair production actually works.
But you are the one claimng to have some secret underlying pair production. Can you show us how your secret produces the same mathematical results as maintstream theory?

[Farsight]

You'd be wrong, because it'd be c) The claim of the standard model that the electron is a fundamental particle, when in fact, it is a photon.Close, but the photon isn't fundamental either. Stress-energy is fundamental, and it doesn't always take the form of a photon.

Isn't it clear that pair production totally and completely disproves that.If you can create and destroy electrons and positrons, they aren't fundamental. Ditto for quarks. Perform low-energy proton/antiproton annihilation and you don't see quarks. What you usually see is neutral pions, for a nanosecond. Then gamma photons. So try explaining to the board where those quarks went.

..It's pretty dumb to claim that because SR and GR are well tested, and Einstein came up with them, that everything Einstein writes or speaks about the topic is correct. There is no logic than that, but it seems to be what you are claiming.I'm not claiming that. You're creating a straw man to dismiss what those guys said out of hand. There's no logic in that.

That'll be a pretty amazing thing. Just remember, your own interpretations have no meaning or importance. The only thing that matters is what we can measure. I'll get the nobel committee on the line.It is pretty amazing actually. And here's somehting else you'll dismiss: Witten's working on it.

That'll be another amazing trick. For 94 years, no one has found anything that produces it, much less explains how they produced it. You'll need to match 1/137.035999679(94).It's no trick. But there is no exact value to match because it's a running constant.

If you can produce neither in the next few days, is it safe to say that we can laugh you off the forum.I'm getting the impression you'll do it anyway. People are very good at clinging to what they've been taught. They aren't nearly so good at thinking for themselves, and are often irrationally hostile to anything new. Even when it isn't new, and when Einstein said it. Or Feynman or Dirac or Minkowski or Maxwell or Newton.

[Farsight]

The problem is not with other people the problem is that your example doesn't fit the facts, as many people have pointed out. If you want to support your case, show the numbers. Show the equations.My examples fit the facts. How can you delude yourself to pretend they don't? Or that I dodge questions? And we've already got the numbers and the equations. What I'm describing explains those equations. This is the thing that people like you just don't get. You cannot explain what the mathematics means with mathematics. Now stop being such a spoiler troll. Contribute some sincerity to the discussion or butt out.

I wasn't aware we needed another explanation why it is a running constant.We need it because virtual photons are virtual, and because Feynman said nobody understands what it all means. Look at α = e²/2ε0hc and remind yourself of this: the electron has unit charge. The effect of that charge varies, but not the charge itself. Imagine you're in a black box in space, and I cannot enter to alter the contents. But I can move the box around without your knowledge. Maybe I do it while you sleep, whatever. You've got an electron in there with you. Between you and the electron is space. If the effect of that electron's charge varies, the properties of something else must have changed. What do you think it might be?

[ctamblyn]

No. I might have expressed it better, but think about a solenoid. The electrons in the wire are spiralling around the magnetic field lines. Now chuck an electron into the solenoid, and its path is helical.

Yes, I get that inside a solenoid you have a nearly-uniform field, and a test charge would move as you describe. But a solenoid isn't a "vertical stack of moving electrons", which is what you were originally referring to - it's a helical current. Hence my confusion.

It's to do with kissing numbers. If electromagnetic fields were one-dimensional, an electron's field would extend in only two directions, so one electron would exert half its field on half the field of another, like this: ←○→ ←○→ . Hence if you pushed them together they'd "couple" with a quarter of their total field strength, and the fine structure constant would take a value of 1/4. If however electromagnetic fields were two-dimensional, you could push electrons together like pennies to form a hexagon.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Kissing-2d.svg/190px-Kissing-2d.svg.png

Each electron would repel another with a sixth of its field in any given direction, and the fine structure constant would take a value of 1/36. Scale it up another dimension and you can push twelve spheres around a central sphere. Each electron repels another with about a twelfth of its field in any given direction. However the fine structure constant isn't 1/144 because the spheres don't quite fit. They don't fit snugly like the pennies. There gaps between them.

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/geometry/kissing/3d.jpg

To appreciate this, it's best to think of an icosahedron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron), with a sphere centered on each of the twelve vertices. If each edge is 1 unit long, the radius of one large sphere just enclosing the icosahedron would be √(10+2√5)/4 or 0.9510565163. This means for our twelve spheres to touch, the central sphere has to be smaller. But it isn't, and that's why they don't fit snugly. There's a gap between the surrounding spheres of circa 5%. If you were the last sphere to join the icosahedron you'd be able to see more than a twelfth of the central sphere on account of this gap. In similar vein an electron "sees" more than a twelfth of another electron when it repels it with its field. Each electron repels another with circa 1/11.7th of its field, which is more than 1/12th. One 11.7th of one field is working against one 11.7th of another, so the combined coupling factor is circa 1/137th. The "running" aspect is crucial when it comes to gravity, but's that's one for another day.
I'll have to get back to you on this.

[The Man]

No. I might have expressed it better, but think about a solenoid. The electrons in the wire are spiralling around the magnetic field lines. Now chuck an electron into the solenoid, and its path is helical.

It's to do with kissing numbers. If electromagnetic fields were one-dimensional, an electron's field would extend in only two directions, so one electron would exert half its field on half the field of another, like this: ←○→ ←○→ . Hence if you pushed them together they'd "couple" with a quarter of their total field strength, and the fine structure constant would take a value of 1/4. If however electromagnetic fields were two-dimensional, you could push electrons together like pennies to form a hexagon.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Kissing-2d.svg/190px-Kissing-2d.svg.png

Each electron would repel another with a sixth of its field in any given direction, and the fine structure constant would take a value of 1/36. Scale it up another dimension and you can push twelve spheres around a central sphere. Each electron repels another with about a twelfth of its field in any given direction. However the fine structure constant isn't 1/144 because the spheres don't quite fit. They don't fit snugly like the pennies. There gaps between them.

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/geometry/kissing/3d.jpg

To appreciate this, it's best to think of an icosahedron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron), with a sphere centered on each of the twelve vertices. If each edge is 1 unit long, the radius of one large sphere just enclosing the icosahedron would be √(10+2√5)/4 or 0.9510565163. This means for our twelve spheres to touch, the central sphere has to be smaller. But it isn't, and that's why they don't fit snugly. There's a gap between the surrounding spheres of circa 5%. If you were the last sphere to join the icosahedron you'd be able to see more than a twelfth of the central sphere on account of this gap. In similar vein an electron "sees" more than a twelfth of another electron when it repels it with its field. Each electron repels another with circa 1/11.7th of its field, which is more than 1/12th. One 11.7th of one field is working against one 11.7th of another, so the combined coupling factor is circa 1/137th. The "running" aspect is crucial when it comes to gravity, but's that's one for another day.

What? The fine structure constant is in fact very easy to understand without all your contrived nonsense.

It is in fact just the ratio between two constants.

The Force between two charges is inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating those charges. For two electrons it is Fe=e2/4pe0Re2 making the constant e2/4pe0=FeRe2. So the force between two electrons times the separation radius between those charges squared (FeRe2) is a constant equal to e2/4pe0.


The energy of a photon at some wavenumber also a constant. It is Ep=hckp/2p Thus Ep/kp = hc/2p the energy of a photon divided its wavenumber (Ep/kp) is a constant equal to hc/2p.

You will note that both of these constants have the same units of Newton Meter2.

The ratio of these constants FeRe2kp/ Ep is 2pe2/4pe0hc or just e2/2e0hc the fine structure constant.

The relation becomes easier to understand when we set all the distances equal to Re, the separation distance between the charges. It then just becomes a ratio of forces. The force between the charges Fe over the Force a photon of a wavenumber equal to the separation distance bdetween those charges can apply through that separation distance Fpe.



ETA: Sorry wavelength l should have been wave number k I have corrected that.

ETA again, sorry I put the wavenumber in the wrong place (forgot to invert)

[Kwalish Kid]

My examples fit the facts. How can you delude yourself to pretend they don't? Or that I dodge questions? And we've already got the numbers and the equations. What I'm describing explains those equations. This is the thing that people like you just don't get. You cannot explain what the mathematics means with mathematics. Now stop being such a spoiler troll. Contribute some sincerity to the discussion or butt out.
Look, just show the equations that produce the spiral pattern that you have described. Then show how this relates to the equations that Minkowski uses? Because so far, you have not demonstrated that these two things have anything to do with each other. This is a direct question, which you can either answer or dodge.

Again, can you show, with the right numbers, how your explanation of pair production produces charge?

[ben m]

consider this gedankenexperiment: you are very small, with a vertical stack of electrons motionless in front of you. You have an electron-tipped wand with which you can feel the electromagnetic field. Take it slowly and you can feel out a cylinder of repulsion. Now swipe the wand down past the stack of electrons, and the end of your wand moves in circles. You're still feeling the electromagnetic field. There aren't two fields there, only one, and it exerts force in two different ways.

Sorry, Farsight, you're insisting that you didn't make a mistake about the forces, but the above statement is pretty clear: it says that "the wand moves in circles" which is flatly incorrect.

[ctamblyn]

Okay, I've got some questions:
<snip>
Scale it up another dimension and you can push twelve spheres around a central sphere. Each electron repels another with about a twelfth of its field in any given direction. However the fine structure constant isn't 1/144 because the spheres don't quite fit. They don't fit snugly like the pennies. There gaps between them.

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/geometry/kissing/3d.jpg

To appreciate this, it's best to think of an icosahedron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron), with a sphere centered on each of the twelve vertices. If each edge is 1 unit long, the radius of one large sphere just enclosing the icosahedron would be √(10+2√5)/4 or 0.9510565163. This means for our twelve spheres to touch, the central sphere has to be smaller. But it isn't, and that's why they don't fit snugly. There's a gap between the surrounding spheres of circa 5%. If you were the last sphere to join the icosahedron you'd be able to see more than a twelfth of the central sphere on account of this gap. In similar vein an electron "sees" more than a twelfth of another electron when it repels it with its field. Each electron repels another with circa 1/11.7th of its field, which is more than 1/12th. One 11.7th of one field is working against one 11.7th of another, so the combined coupling factor is circa 1/137th. The "running" aspect is crucial when it comes to gravity, but's that's one for another day.

Why is the fine structure constant dependent on the ways we can pack solid spheres? Electrons never "kiss" each other, and they are always observed to be point-like in interactions, rather than spherical with some well-defined radius, as far as anyone can tell.
You say the last sphere would see more than a twelfth of the central sphere. But why? It seems to me, from basic symmetry, that all twelve spheres see the same proportion of the central sphere - namely, 1/12. Unless they aren't packed symmetrically, of course - but then why should the last sphere be special and not the first, say?
Your calculation does not match the experimentally determined value of alpha. What is the reason for the discrepancy?

[ben m]

Each electron would repel another with a sixth of its field in any given direction, and the fine structure constant would take a value of 1/36. Scale it up another dimension and you can push twelve spheres around a central sphere. Each electron repels another with about a twelfth of its field in any given direction. However the fine structure constant isn't 1/144 because the spheres don't quite fit. They don't fit snugly like the pennies. There gaps between them.


a) That's not how fields work. The Moon only takes up 0.01% of the sky, but that doesn't mean that the moon uses "0.01% of the field". The statement doesn't make a lick of sense.

b) The rest of your argument is pure numerology. You can find one number in geometry which is in the ballpark of another number in physics. Amateur natural-philosophers have been doing this for centuries---remember how the orbits of the inner planets are pretty close to the radii of nested Platonic solids----and it has always proven completely and utterly pointless.

[ctamblyn]

a) That's not how fields work. The Moon only takes up 0.01% of the sky, but that doesn't mean that the moon uses "0.01% of the field". The statement doesn't make a lick of sense.

I was wondering about this. And the fact that Farsight's argument, as it stands, seems to imply that the fine structure constant should go as 1/r4. Which would be wierd, to say the least.

b) The rest of your argument is pure numerology. You can find one number in geometry which is in the ballpark of another number in physics. Amateur natural-philosophers have been doing this for centuries---remember how the orbits of the inner planets are pretty close to the radii of nested Platonic solids----and it has always proven completely and utterly pointless.
Arthur Eddington springs to mind. ;)

[Tubbythin]

Arthur Eddington springs to mind. ;)

Exactly what I was thinking ('http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/arthur-eddington-died-63-years-ago.html').

[Tubbythin]

If you can create and destroy electrons and positrons, they aren't fundamental.
Why not?


Ditto for quarks. Perform low-energy proton/antiproton annihilation and you don't see quarks. What you usually see is neutral pions, for a nanosecond.
Errm. You do know pions are made of quarks right?


Then gamma photons. So try explaining to the board where those quarks went.
They annihilated with each other.


Even when it isn't new, and when Einstein said it. Or Feynman or Dirac or Minkowski or Maxwell or Newton.
Stop name-dropping. This is a skeptic's forum.

[Tubbythin]

We need it because virtual photons are virtual, and because Feynman said nobody understands what it all means. Look at α = e²/2ε0hc and remind yourself of this: the electron has unit charge. The effect of that charge varies, but not the charge itself. Imagine you're in a black box in space, and I cannot enter to alter the contents. But I can move the box around without your knowledge. Maybe I do it while you sleep, whatever. You've got an electron in there with you. Between you and the electron is space. If the effect of that electron's charge varies, the properties of something else must have changed. What do you think it might be?

Can you give us a scientific argument for what you're trying to say, rather than a nonsense analogy?

[Reality Check]

Or is there some aspect of pair production that is not seen in current models?
The latter. They don't explain how it works.
What do you mean "how"?
It looks quite simple to me: pair production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production), E=mc^2, momentun conservation and all that stuff.

[Farsight]

What? The fine structure constant is in fact very easy to understand without all your contrived nonsense.

It is in fact just the ratio between two constants.

The Force between two charges is inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating those charges...You're just shuffling terms here without getting to the bottom of it, and for the benrfit of other readers: this relation is usually expressed in terms of energy rather than force, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant#Physical_interpretations and note "The ratio of two energies: (i) the energy needed to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between two electrons when the distance between them is reduced from infinity to some finite d, and (ii) the energy of a single photon of wavelength λ = 2πd...". You'll notice pair production and annihilation has been mentioned. In electron/positron annihilation the result is usually two 511keV photons. What I'm talking about on this thread is the geometry of the electromagnetic field, and this will lead on to the geometry of the electron in terms of a self-trapped photon. This relationship comes back to geometry. Read the thrad to catch up.

[Farsight]

Look, just show the equations that produce the spiral pattern that you have described. Then show how this relates to the equations that Minkowski uses? Because so far, you have not demonstrated that these two things have anything to do with each other. This is a direct question, which you can either answer or dodge.I can't do it, it's too difficult. This is three-dimensional dynamical geometry, and even a simple little thing like the moebius strip defied mathematics for 75 years. See http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-10456329.html.

Again, can you show, with the right numbers, how your explanation of pair production produces charge?No, not with the right numbers. But one didn't dimiss the moebius strip just because the formalism was lacking. Ditto for pair production. You talk about it, kick it around, discuss it. You don't accept a non-answer that doesn't explain it at all whilst rejecting those that do.

[Farsight]

Sorry, Farsight, you're insisting that you didn't make a mistake about the forces, but the above statement is pretty clear: it says that "the wand moves in circles" which is flatly incorrect.It isn't flatly incorrect. You're swiping it down at the same time. Consider the vertical stack of electrons to be moving upwards instead of the electron-tipped wand swiping down. So you've got an "electron in a magnetic field". They move in circles. Or helixes if you insist. Come on, this is simple. If an electron is sitting there motionless with respect to you, you see the electromagnetic field as an "electric field". If it's moving in circles, as per the electrons in a magnetic domain, you see the electromagnetic field as a "magnetic field". That's why we have magnets. The thing to remember is this: there's only one field there.

[Kwalish Kid]

I can't do it, it's too difficult.
So you are saying that the elecromagnetic field is like that with no ability to test your theory whatsoever? Why should anyone else place the same blind faith in that drawing? Why do you compare your drawing to the work of Minkowski, when he is obviously working with actual equations that exactly spell out what he was discussing?
This is three-dimensional dynamical geometry, and even a simple little thing like the moebius strip defied mathematics for 75 years. See http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-10456329.html.
Have you actually read the article to which that popular science article refers? Are you aware of the many mathematical descriptions of such strips prior to the to article and mentioned in that article?
No, not with the right numbers. But one didn't dimiss the moebius strip just because the formalism was lacking.
Do you think that there is a difference between such strips that we can construct and see and your spiral pattern that nobody can detect? Don't you think that it is a problem that your drawing contradicts what people can actually detect?
Ditto for pair production. You talk about it, kick it around, discuss it. You don't accept a non-answer that doesn't explain it at all whilst rejecting those that do.
But you have just admitted that you can't actually explain pair production, because you can't explain how we get charge out of moving photons.

[ben m]

What I'm talking about on this thread is the geometry of the electromagnetic field, and this will lead on to the geometry of the electron in terms of a self-trapped photon. This relationship comes back to geometry.

Hold your horses on the "geometry of the electron". So far, from your discussion of the EM field, it sounds like you haven't quite gotten a handle on Maxwell's Equations, even at the freshman/sophomore level.

On the topic of "geometry"---again, this is the first thing that crackpots always want to go to to reexplain physics. Hundreds, probably thousands of amateur physicists have looked at lists of elementary particles and played the Lewis/Dalton/Democritus/Witt/Etc. game of imagining that particles are spheres that stack up in some weird way. The entire idea has had exactly zero success of any sort. Why does it keep coming up? I think it comes up because people like you, Farsight, learned enough geometry so that packed-spheres are easy to think about. Meanwhile, quantum mechanics is all complex differential equations and matrices---hard to think about, requires specialized knowledge that you don't have, and to be honest it's not much fun. When push comes to shove and you say "I want to sit down and think about particle physics" obviously you decide to think about geometry. Unfortunately, there's no evidence whatsoever that Nature works this way.

[ben m]

It isn't flatly incorrect. You're swiping it down at the same time. Consider the vertical stack of electrons to be moving upwards instead of the electron-tipped wand swiping down. So you've got an "electron in a magnetic field". They move in circles. Or helixes if you insist. Come on, this is simple. If an electron is sitting there motionless with respect to you, you see the electromagnetic field as an "electric field". If it's moving in circles, as per the electrons in a magnetic domain, you see the electromagnetic field as a "magnetic field". That's why we have magnets. The thing to remember is this: there's only one field there.

Nope! Still wrong. Let's take your column of electrons to be moving along the z-axis. This generates a B-field in the in the theta direction (orbiting the axis). Meanwhile, you're describing an electron orbiting the axis---a motion which can be produced only by a B-field in the z-direction. You're taking the electron motion we associate with a uniform z^ B field and mistakenly transposing it over to a situation with a 1/r theta^ B field.

[ctamblyn]

Here are some of the problems I can see so far:

How can a photon be self-trapped? I could understand how a photon might be trapped by a small-scale quirk in spatial geometry and topology, but in what sense can a photon be self-trapped?
Even if you get your photon moving in a spatially closed loop, and can get the topology just right in order to do this, notice that the E-field still has zero divergence - and hence there is no charge. And even if you can work the topology to get some lines of E disappearing down a hole (producing the illusion of charge), the same topology can have the same effect on lines of B - so assuming the electron is modelled correctly in the first place by this method, you'll also have magnetic monopoles in your theory with the same mass as the electron.
I also note that in one of the papers you linked to in the other thread, that the photon moving in the "figure of eight" pattern always gave an electric vector pointing in the same sense relative to the "strip". There is no oscillation of E as you move round the photon's path - it has zero frequency, and so the "electron" has zero energy. Maybe your model is different in some essential way, which overcomes this fault?
ETA: Found the paper: http://www.cybsoc.org/electron.pdf

[ctamblyn]

Another problem comes to mind: if an electron is just a photon moving in an exotic path, how does electron-photon scattering occur?

[Farsight]

Okay, I've got some questions:

Why is the fine structure constant dependent on the ways we can pack solid spheres? Electrons never "kiss" each other, and they are always observed to be point-like in interactions, rather than spherical with some well-defined radius, as far as anyone can tell.The electron's field is part of what it is, so they're always "kissing". They aren't actually point particles, they're geometrical entities. The wrong inference was drawn from scattering experiments. It's like not finding a cannonball down to 1m when probing a whirlpool, then setting this as an upper bound for the size of the cannonball.

You say the last sphere would see more than a twelfth of the central sphere. But why? It seems to me, from basic symmetry, that all twelve spheres see the same proportion of the central sphere - namely, 1/12. Unless they aren't packed symmetrically, of course - but then why should the last sphere be special and not the first, say?The last sphere isn't special, I didn't mean to suggest that. Go back to the two-dimensional situation, and imagine that after evenly setting 6 circles around the central circle, you had gaps left. To close the gaps you have to move all the central circles inwards. Replace the circles with electric fields, with archetypal "point sources" at each centre. Now there's slightly more than 1/6th x 1/6th coupling in each of the six directions extending out from the centre.

Your calculation does not match the experimentally determined value of alpha. What is the reason for the discrepancy?The fine structure constant varies. A portion of the mass/energy of the electron is out in its electromagnetic field. How much depends on certain properties of the surrounding space, and this alters the strength of the electromagnetic field. Please can we come back to this later ?
It does lead to a rather surprising understanding of permittivity and permeability.

[Reality Check]

Another problem comes to mind: if an electron is just a photon moving in an exotic path, how does electron-photon scattering occur?
That is not the only problem with that idea

Photons have no charge. Electrons do.
Photons have no spin. Electrons do.
Photons have no mass. Electrons do.
Photons do not have a magnetic moment. Electrons do.
Then there is the question of what Farsight means by "self-trapped". Is the photon bouncing between tiny, wee mirrors :D ?

I hope we do not see the usual crank handwaving, e.g electrons = "self-trapped" photons so "self-trapping" must create charge, spin, mass and magnetic moment.

[ctamblyn]

The electron's field is part of what it is, so they're always "kissing".
<snipped for brevity>
OK, so the effective radius of the electrons (for calculating the kissing number) is half whatever their separation is, I take it.

<snipped for brevity>
Now there's slightly more than 1/6th x 1/6th coupling in each of the six directions extending out from the centre.

Hmmm, this doesn't seem quite right. The picture I have is this: if I place 12 electrons around a central positron, say, then exactly 1/12 of the field lines coming out of the positron will end on each electron. I'll have a bit more of a think.

The fine structure constant varies. <snipped for brevity>
If you don't want to discuss it yet, OK. I'll get this question in in advance: there is a well-defined value for the effective alpha at a given energy scale. At which scale does your calculation apply?

[Reality Check]

The electron's field is part of what it is, so they're always "kissing". They aren't actually point particles, they're geometrical entities. The wrong inference was drawn from scattering experiments. It's like not finding a cannonball down to 1m when probing a whirlpool, then setting this as an upper bound for the size of the cannonball.

See ben m's post about using the simple picture of atomic particles as spheres. We have all seen this simple approach and its dismal failures, e.g. treating the neutron as a "bound" electron and proton.
According to your definition, electrons are always "kissing" regardless of their distance from each other beacuse they have electric fields (which extend to infinity).
A point is a geometrical entity.
You need to do more than just assert "The wrong inference was drawn from scattering experiments". What exactly is wrong with scattering electrons off each other and measuring the closest distance that they approach?

[Farsight]

ben m: I'm not saying the electron is a sphere - the sphere comes in because the electron's field is isotropic. And there's ample evidence that nature works this way: the right hand rule, electric motiors, the dualism of the electromagnetic field, pair production, electron angular momentum and magnetic moment, the list goes on. Specialized knowledge typically causes this evidence to be dismissed, and people cling to misunderstanding. Let me demonstrate:

Nope! Still wrong. Let's take your column of electrons to be moving along the z-axis. This generates a B-field in the in the theta direction..No it doesn't. The electron has an electromagnetic field. A moving electron doesn't generate a magnetic field. This is trivially revealed by the simple expedient of saying it's not the electron moving, but you. This is why relativity applies. That's why Minkowski talked of one field and two forces. Please get to grips with this. It's important.

..(orbiting the axis). Meanwhile, you're describing an electron orbiting the axis---a motion which can be produced only by a B-field in the z-direction. You're taking the electron motion we associate with a uniform z^ B field and mistakenly transposing it over to a situation with a 1/r theta^ B field.I'm not describing an electron orbiting the Z axis. I'm describing an electron orbiting orthogonal to it. So what if the field isn't uniform and intensifies from left to right. All it means is that the circles are somewhat ovoid. Now stop naysaying and pay attention. Start by reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field#Dynamics_of_the_electromagne tic_field.

[ctamblyn]

That is not the only problem with that idea

Photons have no charge. Electrons do.
Photons have no spin. Electrons do.
Photons have no mass. Electrons do.
Photons do not have a magnetic moment. Electrons do.
Then there is the question of what Farsight means by "self-trapped". Is the photon bouncing between tiny, wee mirrors :D ?

I hope we do not see the usual crank handwaving, e.g electrons = "self-trapped" photons so "self-trapping" must create charge, spin, mass and magnetic moment.
I hinted at the problem with photon being neutral in #56, where I mentioned the divergence of the E-field. This theory needs a hole for some lines of E to disappear down - but then what's to stop lines of B doing the same (giving magnetic monopoles)?
The mass I could just about swallow as being due to the energy of the circulating photon (that is, assuming you somehow manage to get a photon to cooperate), but the charge and magnetic moment seems to be a bit of a problem - to put it mildly.
Incidentally, I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say photons have no spin - they're spin-1 particles - but there is still a problem in getting a fermion out of a circulating boson. I think the "mobius strip topology" is intended to deal with this. Somehow.

[Reality Check]

Start by reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field#Dynamics_of_the_electromagne tic_field.
Perhaps you should read what you cite:

In the past, electrically charged objects were thought to produce two types of field associated with their charge property. An electric field is produced when the charge is stationary with respect to an observer measuring the properties of the charge, and a magnetic field (as well as an electric field) is produced when the charge moves (creating an electric current) with respect to this observer. Over time, it was realized that the electric and magnetic fields are better thought of as two parts of a greater whole — the electromagnetic field.

This does not mean that there is no electric field or no magnetic field. It means that you can mathematically treat both fields as components of an electromagnetic field.

N.B. A magnetic field is always produced whenever an charged particle like an electron is moving with respect to the observer.
In your example ("I'm describing an electron orbiting orthogonal to it") the electron is moving in an orbit. There is a magnetic field generated. Of course if you transform to coordinates that are orbiting with the electron then you see no magnetic field from the electron's motion.

[ben m]

I'm not describing an electron orbiting the Z axis. I'm describing an electron orbiting orthogonal to it. So what if the field isn't uniform and intensifies from left to right. All it means is that the circles are somewhat ovoid. Now stop naysaying and pay attention. Start by reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field#Dynamics_of_the_electromagne tic_field.

Pointing out that your descriptions and diagrams were all in conflict with one another is not "naysaying".

As to the one field/two forces thing: yes, the relationship between E, B, and motion is standard mainstream E&M. You can think of it as an E field and a B field which both Lorentz transform, or as a single covariant stress-energy tensor, or whatever, or as QED scattering of one charge off of another via photon exchange.

[Reality Check]

Incidentally, I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say photons have no spin - they're spin-1 particles - but there is still a problem in getting a fermion out of a circulating boson. I think the "mobius strip topology" is intended to deal with this. Somehow.
You are right - I was thinking that a photon did not have a spin that could add up to the electron spin
If Farsight thinks that a "mobius strip topology" can account for this then he is greatly mistaken. As we know the spin of an electron is a quantum mechanical property of a particle and does not depend on any path that it takes. AFAIK, to change spin you need an interaction with another particle.

[Farsight]

Here are some of the problems I can see so far:

How can a photon be self-trapped? I could understand how a photon might be trapped by a small-scale quirk in spatial geometry and topology, but in what sense can a photon be self-trapped?I'll come on to the "how" of it once we've got past the electromagnetic field. Until then, look at the evidence of electron/positron pair production and annihilation. You typically achieve the former by splitting a +1022keV photon over a nucleus. The nucleus persists, but the photon has gone, and now you have an electron and a positron. When they annihilate, the typical result is two 511keV photons. The important thing to grasp is this: there's nothing else there.

Even if you get your photon moving in a spatially closed loop, and can get the topology just right in order to do this, notice that the E-field still has zero divergence - and hence there is no charge.The E-field is because of the topology. Look at this picture again:

http://www.jbum.com/pixmagic/pinwheel.jpg

Why do you think we have gravitomagnetism? The electromagnetic field is the result of frame dragging.

And even if you can work the topology to get some lines of E disappearing down a hole (producing the illusion of charge), the same topology can have the same effect on lines of B - so assuming the electron is modelled correctly in the first place by this method, you'll also have magnetic monopoles in your theory with the same mass as the electron.No, there are no monopoles. There's only one field there, the electric and magnetic field lines merely indicate the forces you observe on test particles, and you observe those forces because the electron is a dynamical "rotor".

I also note that in one of the papers you linked to in the other thread, that the photon moving in the "figure of eight" pattern always gave an electric vector pointing in the same sense relative to the "strip". There is no oscillation of E as you move round the photon's path - it has zero frequency, and so the "electron" has zero energy. Maybe your model is different in some essential way, which overcomes this fault?
ETA: Found the paper: http://www.cybsoc.org/electron.pdfWilliamson and van der Mark wrote that in 1991, and didn't have a dynamical-geometry picture at that time. To explain this I have to get across the way the electromagnetic field is a "twist" field that causes "turn" when in motion through it. Then I can talk about the sinusoidal electromagnetic field variation of a photon. It's an action, and there's a geometry to it.

If an electron is just a photon moving in an exotic path, how does electron-photon scattering occur?The path changes. In very simple terms think of a motionless electron as a photon in a circular path. Find a roll of sellotape and hold it edge-on in your right hand, so it looks like this: | . Give the top of it a knock with your left forefinger, so now it's like this: / . Run your left forefinger up it, but when you get to the top keep going forwards. Now imagine the path is helical. Hence the electron moves. Some of the input photon action has been transferred.

[ctamblyn]

Yet another question comes to mind (though this may be premature):
Let's suppose that you can trap a photon in some appropriately twisted bit of space, and get something that looks like a massive particle. The mass clearly depends on the photon's energy. So if the fundamental mode gives a particle of mass me, should we not expect to see a first excited state with a mass of around 2me?

[Farsight]

This does not mean that there is no electric field or no magnetic field. It means that you can mathematically treat both fields as components of an electromagnetic field.How many times do I have to say it, and how many quality references do I have to give before this very basic point sinks home? There is only one field.

A magnetic field is always produced whenever an charged particle like an electron is moving with respect to the observer.No, it isn't produced. What's there is an electromagnetic field. When you're in motion through it you see it as a magnetic field.

In your example ("I'm describing an electron orbiting orthogonal to it") the electron is moving in an orbit. There is a magnetic field generated. Of course if you transform to coordinates that are orbiting with the electron then you see no magnetic field from the electron's motion.It isn't generated. Read the wiki article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field, see where it says:

"In the past, electrically charged objects were thought to produce two types of field associated with their charge property. An electric field is produced when the charge is stationary with respect to an observer measuring the properties of the charge, and a magnetic field (as well as an electric field) is produced when the charge moves (creating an electric current) with respect to this observer. Over time, it was realized that the electric and magnetic fields are better thought of as two parts of a greater whole — the electromagnetic field."

Why don't you guys know this? And why are you so convinced you're right despite the evidence? This reminds me of the fun I had explaining evolution to YECs.

[ctamblyn]

The E-field is because of the topology. Look at this picture again:

http://www.jbum.com/pixmagic/pinwheel.jpg

Can you show how this model gives Maxwell's equations in the classical limit? It isn't clear from the diagrams.

No, there are no monopoles. There's only one field there, the electric and magnetic field lines merely indicate the forces you observe on test particles, and you observe those forces because the electron is a dynamical "rotor".

But whatever your model can do to produce electric monopoles, will work equally well for magnetic ones. Just change the phase of your photon. How can the model exclude this possibility?
If you're not happy with treating electric and magnetic fields separately, I can word this question differently - in terms of sources of the e/m tensor field Fab and its duel - but the physics will be the same.
The path changes. In very simple terms think of a motionless electron as a photon in a circular path. Find a roll of sellotape and hold it edge-on in your right hand, so it looks like this: | . Give the top of it a knock with your left forefinger, so now it's like this: / . Run your left forefinger up it, but when you get to the top keep going forwards. Now imagine the path is helical. Hence the electron moves. Some of the input photon action has been transferred.
Fundamentally what is happening here is scattering of photons by photons. This doesn't happen easily (it's a second-order process). Can you demonstrate that your model gives the correct scattering amplitudes for Compton scattering?

[Farsight]

Yet another question comes to mind (though this may be premature): Let's suppose that you can trap a photon in some appropriately twisted bit of space...The electromagnetic field is a twist/turn field. The photon exhibits an electromagnetic field variation. You make the photon travel through itself, and at one particular diameter it's travelling entirely through twisting turning space. It can never get out.

..and get something that looks like a massive particle. The mass clearly depends on the photon's energy. So if the fundamental mode gives a particle of mass me, should we not expect to see a first excited state with a mass of around 2me?No. It's simpler than that. There's a symmetry between momentum and inertia. This is the relativity again. If it's the other thing moving you call it momentum. If it's you moving instead, you call it inertia. Instead of an action delivering a bump like in Compton scattering, it would feel as if it was a bump. It's like an ocean wave. If you're in a boat it passes on by and feels like a wave. But if you pace it in a helicopter it looks like a bump in the ocean - a particle rather than a wave. Trap a massless photon in a mirror-box, and the mass of that system is increased. The photon is still bouncing around at c, but it isn't going anywhere. The electron is a similar system, with a 2D rotational motion instead of a bouncing around. The photon is trapped in a "box" of its own making.

[ben m]

ben m: I'm not saying the electron is a sphere - the sphere comes in because the electron's field is isotropic. And there's ample evidence that nature works this way: the right hand rule, electric motiors, the dualism of the electromagnetic field, pair production, electron angular momentum and magnetic moment, the list goes on.

The electron's field is NOT isotropic; it's an (almost) isotropic monopole electric field and a (distinctly non-isotropic) dipole magnetic field. And an unmeasurably tiny but still there electric dipole moment.

None of the phenomena you mention have anything to do with the sphericalness or non-sphericalness of anything. Maybe you're hoping to show that they do, but you haven't done so yet.

[ben m]

Why don't you guys know this? And why are you so convinced you're right despite the evidence? This reminds me of the fun I had explaining evolution to YECs.

Singularitarian (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=148751), is that you?

[Reality Check]

How many times do I have to say it, and how many quality references do I have to give before this very basic point sinks home? There is only one field.

What is confusing you? I stated that there is only one field. That field is called the electromagnetic field. That field has 2 components. One component is called the electric field. The other component is called the magnetic field.
These can be treated as one in a tensor formulation where the separate components of each field appear are commonly written as the elements of a matrix.


No, it isn't produced. What's there is an electromagnetic field. When you're in motion through it you see it as a magnetic field.

No, it is produced. What there is an electromagnetic field from an electron. When there is no relative motion there is only an electric field (ignoring the electron's intrinsic magnetic moment). The magnetic field component is zero. When the electron has a motion relative to the observer then the magnetic field component becomes non-zero, i.e. is "produced".


It isn't generated. Read the wiki article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field, see where it says:
...
Why don't you guys know this? And why are you so convinced you're right despite the evidence? This reminds me of the fun I had explaining evolution to YECs.
It is generated by the relative motion of the observer. Read the wiki article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field), as I quoted to you before and you are quoting back at me.
In the past, electrically charged objects were thought to produce two types of field associated with their charge property. An electric field is produced when the charge is stationary with respect to an observer measuring the properties of the charge, and a magnetic field (as well as an electric field) is produced when the charge moves (creating an electric current) with respect to this observer. Over time, it was realized that the electric and magnetic fields are better thought of as two parts of a greater whole — the electromagnetic field.
What part of "produced when the charge moves" is hard to understand?
What part of "two parts of a greater whole" is hard to understand?

The mathematical treatment of the electromagnetic field as two parts of a greater whole is better described using tensors in the Electromagnetic tensor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_tensor) article.

[ctamblyn]

Trap a massless photon in a mirror-box, and the mass of that system is increased. The photon is still bouncing around at c, but it isn't going anywhere. The electron is a similar system, with a 2D rotational motion instead of a bouncing around. The photon is trapped in a "box" of its own making.
But if you trap an electron, or e/m field, in a confined space you don't just have one possible frequency. There is a whole range of vibrational modes. How do you exclude the higher frequency modes?
And incidentally, I think you need to demonstrate how a photon can trap itself in this manner.

[Reality Check]

But if you trap an electron, or e/m field, in a confined space you don't just have one possible frequency.
This reminded me that the modern upper limit for the size of electrons is not derived from scattering experiments. It is rather from the movements of single electrons in Penning traps. The upper limit is quoted as 10-22 meters but this is from a 1988 paper so it may be smaller by now:
A Single Atomic Particle Forever Floating at Rest in Free Space: New Value for Electron Radius (http://iopscience.iop.org/1402-4896/1988/T22/016/)

[ctamblyn]

This reminded me that the modern upper limit for the size of electrons is not derived from scattering experiments. It is rather from the movements of single electrons in Penning traps. The upper limit is quoted as 10-22 meters but this is from a 1988 paper so it may be smaller by now:
A Single Atomic Particle Forever Floating at Rest in Free Space: New Value for Electron Radius (http://iopscience.iop.org/1402-4896/1988/T22/016/)
That is spooky. I had just come across the same paper - via a reference in good old Wikipedia - and had copied the URL to link to in my next post.
For comparison, the Compton radius wavelength of the electron is of order 10-12m. This is the typical value used as the size of the "self-trapped photon" path in the papers I've read so far.

[ben m]

No. It's simpler than that. There's a symmetry between momentum and inertia. This is the relativity again. If it's the other thing moving you call it momentum. If it's you moving instead, you call it inertia.


That's not what inertia means. Inertia is basically the same thing as mass. Momentum is mass times velocity. Nobody would look at a moving object and say "it doesn't have inertia any more, now it has momentum".


Trap a massless photon in a mirror-box, and the mass of that system is increased.

Yep, that's totally standard physics. (Note that putting a photon into a box does not make the box electrically charged.)

The electron is a similar system, with a 2D rotational motion instead of a bouncing around. The photon is trapped in a "box" of its own making.

I'm sure you have a very visual mental picture of this, but I assure you there is no actual physics in that picture. You will not find any way to generate a photon-scattering-off-itself in Maxwell's Equations, nor in QED. You are inventing a new aspect of E&M, guessing (unconvincingly so far) that it gives you something that looks like an electron, and further perhaps you anticipate guessing that this new aspect of E&M is consistent with everything else we know.

[Farsight]

Can you show how this model gives Maxwell's equations in the classical limit? It isn't clear from the diagrams.No. It's like a whole different language. I can't even give you a decent mathematical description of the electron. The electron is a photon moving in totally-curved space. Then an electron moves in an electromagnetic field because there's another layer of curvature on top, plus maybe translation motion too. To be honest, I don't know where to start.

But whatever your model can do to produce electric monopoles, will work equally well for magnetic ones. Just change the phase of your photon. How can the model exclude this possibility?Because they're electromagnetic monopoles. I feel like I'm jumping ahead here, but I'll say it anyway. Changing the phase of the photon doesn't do anything because it's just a pulse of stress-energy barrelling along at c. Think of stress-energy in literal terms. Stress is akin to pressure, so think pressure-pulse. It's electromagnetic, and I've been talking about twist and turn. So think in terms of a cubic lattice where the typical sinusoidal electric waveform is telling you how twisted space is. It's tracing the slope of erstwile horizontal lattice lines. Think of one wavelength. The degree of twist rises to a maximum a quarter-way along, goes to zero halfway, descends to a negative minimum three-quarters along, then goes back to zero. The sinusoidal magnetic waveform is telling you the turn rate of the lattice lines as the pulse goes by. This is describing a pulse of... spacewarp. It's in a bulk, so it seems to be something like the typical wavepacket outline, a "pointy lemon", see figure 2 in http://arxiv4.library.cornell.edu/abs/0803.2596?context=physics.optics. It's like a gravitational wave, but smaller. Relativity again.

If you're not happy with treating electric and magnetic fields separately, I can word this question differently - in terms of sources of the e/m tensor field Fab and its duel - but the physics will be the same.Please do, but see above - where do I start? What I've been saying here takes us from vectors to geometry, from what it does to what it is.

Fundamentally what is happening here is scattering of photons by photons. This doesn't happen easily (it's a second-order process). Can you demonstrate that your model gives the correct scattering amplitudes for Compton scattering?No. I haven't considered it all.

[Farsight]

The electron's field is NOT isotropic; it's an (almost) isotropic monopole electric field and a (distinctly non-isotropic) dipole magnetic field. And an unmeasurably tiny but still there electric dipole moment.Aaaargh! It's not an electric field! It's an electromagnetic field. And yes, it's not quite isotropic, but it's not something different to "the electron's magnetic field". Can somebody please teach this guy the basics of the electromagnetic field?

Singularitarian (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=148751), is that you?Who's Singularitarian? I'm not him. Let's see what he's been saying: Time is a universal invariant. Time is very much the same as space. It exists as an ''imaginary dimension of space'' - it's not unique, nor an extention of space itself, it is space itself. Wrong. Time is an emergent property of motion through space.

[Tubbythin]

Until then, look at the evidence of electron/positron pair production and annihilation. You typically achieve the former by splitting a +1022keV photon over a nucleus.
I don't know what that means but I'm fairly sure its wrong. The interactions of 1022 keV photons are dominated by Compton scattering and the photoelectric effect.


The nucleus persists, but the photon has gone, and now you have an electron and a positron. When they annihilate, the typical result is two 511keV photons.
Well the electron you just made is unlikely to annihilate with anything any time soon.


The important thing to grasp is this: there's nothing else there.
In what sense?

[ben m]

Aaaargh! It's not an electric field! It's an electromagnetic field. And yes, it's not quite isotropic, but it's not something different to "the electron's magnetic field".

In any given reference frame, the EM field breaks down uniquely into an E field and a B field. This is a perfectly clear way to discuss it and you have no grounds for objecting.

If you weren't singling out the electric component of the EM field, and singling it out in the electron's rest frame, then you'd never have used the word "isotropy" to begin with. Looking at it in any other frame, there's nothing even isotropic (except azimuthally) about the EM field at all. Heck, if you're close enough to the source, classically speaking, the magnetic dipole term dominates.

[Tubbythin]

No. It's like a whole different language. I can't even give you a decent mathematical description of the electron.
Then, to put it bluntly, you have nothing of any scientific value whatsoever..

[ctamblyn]

Farsight, I think my previous questions are worth thinking about in some depth. If you want your model to have a fighting chance, you need to demonstrate that it does indeed yield Maxwell's equations plus the Lorentz force law in the classical limit - or at least yields the same observable behaviour. Also, the scattering of light by charged particles needs to be considered. These are the two most fundamental aspects of electromagnetism.

Pair production... well, its nice to have a visual model, but remember hard numbers are king. When you do come to consider particle creation/annihilation processes, remember that electron-positron annihilation doesn't always give two photons. Your model should be capable of predicting the correct branching ratios for the different outcomes. IMHO consideration of high-energy processes could probably come later in your analysis - park it for now by all means - but it can't be glossed over forever.

Just my 2p-worth.

[ben m]

I'll come on to the "how" of it once we've got past the electromagnetic field. Until then, look at the evidence of electron/positron pair production and annihilation. You typically achieve the former by splitting a +1022keV photon over a nucleus. The nucleus persists, but the photon has gone, and now you have an electron and a positron. When they annihilate, the typical result is two 511keV photons. The important thing to grasp is this: there's nothing else there.


(Not nothing: you've transferred momentum and one unit of spin to the nucleus.)

Secondly: so what about "there's nothing else there"? I can also emit a photon from a radio antenna. It crashes into another radio antenna and makes some electrons move up and down. "There's nothing else there" in this case too. The only thing there is to grasp about this is that photons do not carry any conserved quantum numbers. Again, I will note that QED has been keeping track of every measurable detail of pair production perfectly well for 60+ years.

[Farsight]

What is confusing you? I stated that there is only one field. That field is called the electromagnetic field. That field has 2 components. One component is called the electric field. The other component is called the magnetic field. These can be treated as one in a tensor formulation where the separate components of each field appear are commonly written as the elements of a matrix.Do you still not get it? It's one field.

No, it is produced. What there is an electromagnetic field from an electron. When there is no relative motion there is only an electric field (ignoring the electron's intrinsic magnetic moment). The magnetic field component is zero. When the electron has a motion relative to the observer then the magnetic field component becomes non-zero, i.e. is "produced".Nope. It's always an electromagnetic field. When you're an electron without relative motion your motion is simple - just outward from the source. When you move through it, it isn't. One field causes all the motion.

It is generated by the relative motion of the observer. Read the wiki article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field), as I quoted to you before and you are quoting back at me.You read it, all of it. Not just the bits that fit with your hazy understanding. Do some research. Read the whole article:

"Once this electromagnetic field has been produced from a given charge distribution, other charged objects in this field will experience a force (in a similar way that planets experience a force in the gravitational field of the Sun). If these other charges and currents are comparable in size to the sources producing the above electromagnetic field, then a new net electromagnetic field will be produced. Thus, the electromagnetic field may be viewed as a dynamic entity that causes other charges and currents to move, and which is also affected by them. These interactions are described by Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law."

What part of "produced when the charge moves" is hard to understand? What part of "two parts of a greater whole" is hard to understand?The part that suggests a magnetic field is "created" when you move a charged particle. It isn't. They aren't two parts of a greater whole, just two aspects. Two ways of seeing it.

The mathematical treatment of the electromagnetic field as two parts of a greater whole is better described using tensors in the Electromagnetic tensor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_tensor) article.If it is, why don't you understand it?

[ctamblyn]

I'd like to add a little more to my previous point.
If you really want your theory to be given serious consideration, the best thing to do is predict some phenomenon that has yet to be observed, and is not predicted by the standard model. Are there any candidates? E.g. it seems to me that if the electron is not point-like, this should show up at suitably high energies.

[Tubbythin]

"Once this electromagnetic field has been produced from a given charge distribution, other charged objects in this field will experience a force (in a similar way that planets experience a force in the gravitational field of the Sun). If these other charges and currents are comparable in size to the sources producing the above electromagnetic field, then a new net electromagnetic field will be produced. Thus, the electromagnetic field may be viewed as a dynamic entity that causes other charges and currents to move, and which is also affected by them. These interactions are described by Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law."

I'm guessing your unfamiliar with Maxwell's equations which concern the divergence and curl of electric fields and magnetic fields.

[Farsight]

But if you trap an electron, or e/m field, in a confined space you don't just have one possible frequency. There is a whole range of vibrational modes. How do you exclude the higher frequency modes?You don't. You have tighter loops and more of them.

And incidentally, I think you need to demonstrate how a photon can trap itself in this manner.Let's come back to that at more once I've caught up.

[ctamblyn]

What part of "produced when the charge moves" is hard to understand? What part of "two parts of a greater whole" is hard to understand?The part that suggests a magnetic field is "created" when you move a charged particle. It isn't. They aren't two parts of a greater whole, just two aspects. Two ways of seeing it.

This is bordering on a purely semantic argument. If I observe an electron moving past me with uniform velocity, I can measure a magnetic field. I can also define it rigorously as the axial vector obtained from the space-space components of the e/m tensor field. It's every bit as real as the notion of energy, or momentum, or indeed velocity. They're not Lorentz invariant concepts, sure, but directly relate to measurements I can make in a particular reference frame.

[Farsight]

That's not what inertia means. Inertia is basically the same thing as mass. Momentum is mass times velocity. Nobody would look at a moving object and say "it doesn't have inertia any more, now it has momentum". Shows how much you know. A photon has no mass, but it does have momentum p=hf/c. An electron which is motionless with respect to you has mass but no momentum. Now annihilate it with a positron, and look at that 511keV photon zipping away at c. Hey presto, momentum but no mass.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity#The_relativistic_energy-momentum_equation. Imagine you perform pair production, but there's insufficient energy to separate the electron and the positorn, so they annihilate shortly thereafter. That's a flip-flop from momentum to mass and back again. Simple.

Yep, that's totally standard physics. (Note that putting a photon into a box does not make the box electrically charged.)Noted. But the positron and electron had +ve and -ve charge, and the two 511keV photons have their sinusoidal electromagnetic field variations. As one goes by you feel an electromagnetic field rising then dropping and going negative then zero again. And there's no charge there. Instead there's current. The photon is alternating current. But it isn't like some electron shuttling back and forth.

I'm sure you have a very visual mental picture of this, but I assure you there is no actual physics in that picture. You will not find any way to generate a photon-scattering-off-itself in Maxwell's Equations, nor in QED. You are inventing a new aspect of E&M, guessing (unconvincingly so far) that it gives you something that looks like an electron, and further perhaps you anticipate guessing that this new aspect of E&M is consistent with everything else we know.Shrug. Maxwell's equations are Heaviside's equations, and if you actually read the original Maxwell you'd understand that I didn't invent this. It was Maxwell:

A motion of translation along an axis cannot produce a rotation about that axis unless it meets with some special mechanism, like that of a screw.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:On_Physical_Lines_of_Force.pdf
page 53, try this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AOn_Physical_Lines_of_Force. pdf&page=53

Dismiss Maxwell if you like. But physics is science. Dismissing scientific evidence like pair produciton and annihilation because you can't do the maths, isn't.

[ctamblyn]

You don't. You have tighter loops and more of them.

I'm not making myself understood, perhaps. For a given length L of closed twisted path, any wave with a wavelength L/n (for n=1, 2, ...) could wrap itself around that path without interfering destructively (assuming we can get photons to travel in such a way in the first place). The energy of the nth mode would be nhc/L (h is Planck's constant, c the speed of light). The mass of the system is given by this energy. Thus, if an electron-like particle is possible, with the correct mass, then so is a particle with n times the electron's mass for each n. There's no way to prevent it unless the higher-frequency photons somehow escape the binding mechanism.
Postulating tighter loops multiplies the issue - for each size loop you'll have another series of modes.
This is, of course, assuming a one-dimensional loop. Presumably you envisage a 2- or 3-dimensional volume in which the photon moves. The number of modes increases accordingly - I'm sure Wiki has an article on waves in a 3d box, to get an idea - and each mode would be an observable particle in your model. Now, this would be a good thing if it meant your theory predicted the correct masses for the mu and tau leptons (relative to the electron mass, presumably), but the lepton masses don't follow such a simple progression AFAIK. So instead you need a mechanism for inhibiting these modes, and perhaps another mechanism for explaining the mu and tau.

[ctamblyn]

Noted. But the positron and electron had +ve and -ve charge, and the two 511keV photons have their sinusoidal electromagnetic field variations. As one goes by you feel an electromagnetic field rising then dropping and going negative then zero again. And there's no charge there. Instead there's current. The photon is alternating current. But it isn't like some electron shuttling back and forth.

You need to expand on this. An e/m wave is not the same thing as an alternating current in the usual sense of the phrase. A current involves a flux of charged particles across a surface. In AC (in the normal sense), the positive flux during the first half-cycle is cancelled by the negative flux in the second half-cycle, but there is still a flow of charged particles.
Are you thinking of displacement "current" by any chance?

[ben m]

Shows how much you know. A photon has no mass, but it does have momentum p=hf/c. An electron which is motionless with respect to you has mass but no momentum. Now annihilate it with a positron, and look at that 511keV photon zipping away at c. Hey presto, momentum but no mass.

I wasn't giving a lecture on relativistic energy-momentum conservation, I was pointing out that you misuse (or used oddly) the word "inertia".


Noted. But the positron and electron had +ve and -ve charge, and the two 511keV photons have their sinusoidal electromagnetic field variations.


But you're claiming to put one photon into a knot with itself and get a charge.


As one goes by you feel an electromagnetic field rising then dropping and going negative then zero again. And there's no charge there. Instead there's current. The photon is alternating current. But it isn't like some electron shuttling back and forth.


There's no current in a photon. Just fields.


Shrug. Maxwell's equations are Heaviside's equations, and if you actually read the original Maxwell you'd understand that I didn't invent this. It was Maxwell:

A motion of translation along an axis cannot produce a rotation about that axis unless it meets with some special mechanism, like that of a screw.


I don't see any way in which that is relevant to your theory.

[ben m]

If it is, why don't you understand it?

Farsight: the reason I cited old Mr. Singularitarian is that he was also someone whose major activity on this board was accusing everyone who disagreed with him of not knowing basic physics. It made for some amusing but basically pointless threads. You are in danger of tacking in that direction.

The people disagreeing with you are perfectly in touch with mainstream physics, at least the level of this conversation (and let's not speculate about beyond that). You're insisting on the "one EM field vs. separate electric and magnetic fields" distinction, and you've gone beyond "annoyingly pedantic" into "error by overcorrection"---it's not that you are always describing it wrongly, but at the you're tendentiously denouncing things, like RC's statement about the B field appearing, which in fact are perfectly acceptable rephrasings of the truth.

[Farsight]

I don't know what that means but I'm fairly sure its wrong. The interactions of 1022 keV photons are dominated by Compton scattering and the photoelectric effect.Look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production. Check it out:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Pairproduction.png

Well the electron you just made is unlikely to annihilate with anything any time soon.Some of the +1022keV is lost to the nucleus, but not much because it's so massive and conservation of momentum applies. Take out the 1022keV to make the electron and positron, and if there's not much left the electron and positron don't fly apart fast enough. Then they attract one another and annihilate.

Re: The important thing to grasp is this: there's nothing else there. In what sense?You started with light, you performed pair production then annihilation, so you ended up with light. In between you had this electron in front of you, with its magnetic dipole moment. You can't have magnetic dipole moment unless there's some kind of rotation going on. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment#Magnetic_moment_of _an_electron and this bit:

"From classical electrodynamics, a rotating electrically charged body creates a magnetic dipole with magnetic poles of equal magnitude but opposite polarity."

And look a little further down at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment#Spin_magnetic_dipo le_moment

"The magnetic moment of an electron is approximately twice what it should be in classical mechanics. The factor of two difference implies that the electron appears to be twice as effective in producing a magnetic moment as the corresponding classical charged body."

What's rotating in there? Nothing? Because electron spin is mysterious and "intrinsic", incompatible with classical physics, and it surpasseth all human understanding. And you know this because that's what your textbook says, and that's what you've been taught. So much so, that you can't even consider that spin 1/2 might have something to do with a moebius strip, and you can't even consider pair production and annihilation to wonder if it might just conceivably be light that's rotating in there. Me, I'm skeptical.

http://members.optushome.com.au/walshjj/toroid2.jpg

And so to bed.

[ben m]

Look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production.

Farsight? Tubby is right. Pair production is less important than either PE or Compton scattering up to maybe 5 MeV.

[ben m]

What's rotating in there? Nothing? Because electron spin is mysterious and "intrinsic", incompatible with classical physics, and it surpasseth all human understanding. And you know this because that's what your textbook says, and that's what you've been taught. So much so, that you can't even consider that spin 1/2 might have something to do with a moebius strip, and you can't even consider pair production and annihilation to wonder if it might just conceivably be light that's rotating in there. Me, I'm skeptical.

a) Ah, the argument from incredulity. You don't find the intrinsic spin of the electron personally satisfying, so therefore it's wrong. Lacking a specific way in which it went wrong you blame it on a textbook learning and a lack of out-of-the-box thinking. Seriously, though: everything in quantum mechanics is compatible with classical physics. The whole shebang is nonclassical. Spins, magnetic moments, CP violation, atoms, diffraction, pi-bonding, bremsstrahlung, quantum dots, superconductors. Don't insist that classical intuition is somehow "privileged" over quantum mechanics---that's an accident of history (Newton was born first) and of size (humans are very large compared to any relevant quantum size scale.)

b) We can't consider that it's a Mobius strip---unless you want to get into topological defects, which I don't think you do---because that's a mechanical model and therefore incompatible with the quantum mechanical nature of particles.

c) A photon going in a circle doesn't have generate a magnetic moment.

d) Pair production and annihilation has nothing to do with photons specifically. There's an absolutely-identical process involving two neutrinos (nu nubar -> e+ e- and e+ e- --> nu nubar) or two quarks (e+ e- --> q qbar) or almost anything you like. At low energies the cross section is very small, but at collider energies (200+ GeV) the two processes are very similar. Should we be getting all excited about how the electron is really "made of" a self-trapped neutrino? No, because there is no evidence anywhere in particle physics that this is a productive way of thinking.

[Reality Check]

Do you still not get it? It's one field.

Yes I do get it. That one field is called the electromagnetic field. That field has 2 components. One component is called the electric field. The other component is called the magnetic field.


Nope. It's always an electromagnetic field. When you're an electron without relative motion your motion is simple - just outward from the source. When you move through it, it isn't. One field causes all the motion.

Nope. It's always an electromagnetic field. When you're an electron without relative motion that one field has only electric components. When you're an electron with relative motion that one field has electric and magnetic componennt.


You read it, all of it. Not just the bits that fit with your hazy understanding. Do some research.
...
The part that suggests a magnetic field is "created" when you move a charged particle. It isn't. They aren't two parts of a greater whole, just two aspects. Two ways of seeing it.

You are wrong.
If you have a stationary electron then the electromagnetic field just has electric components. There is only an electric field. There is no magnetic field.
If you have a moving electron the electromagnetic field electric and magnetic components. There is an electric field. There is a magnetic field.
The motion of the electron realtive to the observer has created a magnetic field. That magnetic field did not exist before. It can be removed by moving with the electron.

[ben m]

Seriously, though: everything in quantum mechanics is compatible with classical physics.

Ack! Negation typo! That should have read "INCOMPATIBLE".

[Tubbythin]

Look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production. Check it out:

I'm perfectly familiar with pair production thanks. But near threshold energies, Compton scattering is more likely by at least an order of magnitude. In high Z materials the photoelectric effect is also more important.


Some of the +1022keV is lost to the nucleus, but not much because it's so massive and conservation of momentum applies. Take out the 1022keV to make the electron and positron, and if there's not much left the electron and positron don't fly apart fast enough. Then they attract one another and annihilate.
Like I said, 1.022 keV photons will very rarely pair produce.


You started with light, you performed pair production then annihilation, so you ended up with light. In between you had this electron in front of you, with its magnetic dipole moment. You can't have magnetic dipole moment unless there's some kind of rotation going on. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment#Magnetic_moment_of _an_electron and this bit:

"From classical electrodynamics, a rotating electrically charged body creates a magnetic dipole with magnetic poles of equal magnitude but opposite polarity."

And look a little further down at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment#Spin_magnetic_dipo le_moment

"The magnetic moment of an electron is approximately twice what it should be in classical mechanics. The factor of two difference implies that the electron appears to be twice as effective in producing a magnetic moment as the corresponding classical charged body."

What's rotating in there? Nothing? Because electron spin is mysterious and "intrinsic", incompatible with classical physics, and it surpasseth all human understanding. And you know this because that's what your textbook says, and that's what you've been taught.
Its my understanding that the Dirac equation explains the idea of intrinsic spin very nicely. The fact that it doesn't agree with your classical intuition is your problem. Hell, it even predicted the existence of the positron.


So much so, that you can't even consider that spin 1/2 might have something to do with a moebius strip, and you can't even consider pair production and annihilation to wonder if it might just conceivably be light that's rotating in there. Me, I'm skeptical.

I can consider it. I can also rule it out as ridiculous.

[Kwalish Kid]

No it doesn't. The electron has an electromagnetic field. A moving electron doesn't generate a magnetic field. This is trivially revealed by the simple expedient of saying it's not the electron moving, but you. This is why relativity applies. That's why Minkowski talked of one field and two forces. Please get to grips with this. It's important.
It is important. But you are cherry-picking one thing Minkowski said and ignoring what Minkowski slearly meant by his statement as shown by the mathematical details of his piece. Minkowksi clearly would agree that a moving electron generates a magnetic field. What he menas by the statement you have cherry-picked is that whether or not the electron is moving and how much it is moving depends on the frame of reference used. Thus the magnetic field or the electric field in place in the region is wholly determined by the frame of reference used to describe the electron (and other relevant entities).
How many times do I have to say it, and how many quality references do I have to give before this very basic point sinks home? There is only one field.
Minkowski's paper is amazing, but your citation of it is obviously flawed, since you are misrepresenting the conclusions that Minkowski draws in that paper. If you want to convince people, you will have to show the mathematics directly, not through poor references to the work of others.
No, it isn't produced. What's there is an electromagnetic field. When you're in motion through it you see it as a magnetic field.
When the electron is not in motion, it is not in motion. But you cannot escape that you are making a gross error in one frame of reference by attempting to discuss only another frame.

[Kwalish Kid]

No. It's like a whole different language. I can't even give you a decent mathematical description of the electron. The electron is a photon moving in totally-curved space. Then an electron moves in an electromagnetic field because there's another layer of curvature on top, plus maybe translation motion too. To be honest, I don't know where to start.
So you admit that there is no reason to suppose that your model matches the wealth of experimental data on the electron.

[readme.txt]

I don't believe in time.

[kalen]

A 1022 keV photon will never pair produce in the vicinity of a stationary nucleus.

Sure, there's enough energy there to produce 2 particles of 511 keV/c^2 mass each, but there's no energy left over (ie they will be stationary), and it can be seen that the total momentum of the system is not conserved.

Total p before: 1022 keV/c

Total p after: 0 keV/c

[ben m]

A 1022 keV photon will never pair produce in the vicinity of a stationary nucleus.

Sure, there's enough energy there to produce 2 particles of 511 keV/c^2 mass each, but there's no energy left over (ie they will be stationary), and it can be seen that the total momentum of the system is not conserved.

Total p before: 1022 keV/c

Total p after: 0 keV/c

You've got the right idea, but you can't make the distinction between "almost" and "never" at the casual three-digits-of-precision level we're using here. As a matter of kinematics, when scattering off of a really heavy nucleus (say, lead) 1,022,000 eV is indeed just a hair above threshhold. (This close to threshhold you have to worry about atomic physics affecting the final state electron phase space, but never mind.)

[kalen]

You've got the right idea, but you can't make the distinction between "almost" and "never" at the casual three-digits-of-precision level we're using here. As a matter of kinematics, when scattering off of a really heavy nucleus (say, lead) 1,022,000 eV is indeed just a hair above threshhold. (This close to threshhold you have to worry about atomic physics affecting the final state electron phase space, but never mind.)

Sorry, my casual illustration was meant to imply E_photon = 2 m_e/c^2 exactly, which I believe was the point.

Could be wrong...I was only scanning through the thread quickly. If we are concerned with what happens above threshold, of course the phase space starts to open up.

[The Man]

You're just shuffling terms here without getting to the bottom of it, and for the benrfit of other readers: this relation is usually expressed in terms of energy rather than force, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant#Physical_interpretations and note "The ratio of two energies: (i) the energy needed to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between two electrons when the distance between them is reduced from infinity to some finite d, and (ii) the energy of a single photon of wavelength λ = 2πd...". You'll notice pair production and annihilation has been mentioned. In electron/positron annihilation the result is usually two 511keV photons. What I'm talking about on this thread is the geometry of the electromagnetic field, and this will lead on to the geometry of the electron in terms of a self-trapped photon. This relationship comes back to geometry. Read the thrad to catch up.

Well I’m not sure what you are referring to as “shuffling” and I certainly understand the basis for all those terms.

Yes they are expressing it in terms of energy. You do understand that a force applied through a distance is a change in energy, don’t you? So there is nothing inconsistent between that reference and what I stated. One could also refer to it in terms of momentum, charge and even the gravitational attraction of two Planck masses. However since I was specifically referring to the force between two charges it is simply consistent to put that in terms of, well, force. What I don’t see in that reference you cited is “kissing numbers”, your geometric contrivances or a “running” value.


I read this thread from the beginning prior to my first post here, so ‘catching up’ is not an issue for me. Perhaps if your geometric contrivances actually got you the correct value it wouldn’t be an issue for you either and your value would not have to be “running” to “catch up” to the actual value.

[Farsight]

Sorry guys, I've been busy. I can only give so much time to conversation.

In any given reference frame, the EM field breaks down uniquely into an E field and a B field. This is a perfectly clear way to discuss it and you have no grounds for objecting.Read my opening posts, again, I do have grounds for saying it's one field with a dualism. I've got Minkowski and Maxwell and Jefimenko backing me up on this.

If you weren't singling out the electric component of the EM field, and singling it out in the electron's rest frame, then you'd never have used the word "isotropy" to begin with. Looking at it in any other frame, there's nothing even isotropic (except azimuthally) about the EM field at all. Heck, if you're close enough to the source, classically speaking, the magnetic dipole term dominates.It's an aspect, not a component. When you're at rest with respect to the electron you see the EM field as an electric field. Move past the electron and you see it as a magnetic field. Yes if you're small and you're up close you'd notice the magnetic dipole term, but that's only apparent because the electron has its own internalised rotational motion which supports what I've been saying. The isotropy applies because we do not observe ovoid EM fields from point charges. They're spherical.

[Farsight]

Then, to put it bluntly, you have nothing of any scientific value whatsoever..LOL. To put it bluntly, you just dismissed experimental physics. It amazes me how people dismiss evidence and Einstein and anything that isn't in the mathematics they know and isn't what they were taught. The parallel with YECs dismissing fossils and strata and continental drift is marked.

Edit:

I'm guessing your unfamiliar with Maxwell's equations which concern the divergence and curl of electric fields and magnetic fields.No, I'm familiar with them. They're describing the forces you feel but there's only one causative field, not two. That's why it's the electromagnetic field. Note that "Maxwell's equations" are Heaviside's equations. I've read the original Maxwell. You should too, then you'll appreciate that what I've been saying here comes from Maxwell. He didn't get the vortexes right, he thought they were in the intervening space, but once you understand all this it's amazing how close he was.

[Farsight]

Farsight, I think my previous questions are worth thinking about in some depth. If you want your model to have a fighting chance, you need to demonstrate that it does indeed yield Maxwell's equations plus the Lorentz force law in the classical limit - or at least yields the same observable behaviour. Also, the scattering of light by charged particles needs to be considered. These are the two most fundamental aspects of electromagnetism.Noted, ct. I don't disagree. But even then I'm not sure it would receive adequate attention. If you don't mind I'd prefer not to go into that. It isn't "my model" by the way - I like to think I've contributed something, but in large part it's a synthesis drawn from a range of little-publicised papers.

Pair production... well, its nice to have a visual model, but remember hard numbers are king. When you do come to consider particle creation/annihilation processes, remember that electron-positron annihilation doesn't always give two photons. Your model should be capable of predicting the correct branching ratios for the different outcomes. IMHO consideration of high-energy processes could probably come later in your analysis - park it for now by all means - but it can't be glossed over forever. Just my 2p-worth.Thanks for the considered input. Point taken. It's just that there's so much to do here I felt it would be more productive to recruit sufficient interest to motivate others to pick it up and run with it.

Edit:

I'd like to add a little more to my previous point. If you really want your theory to be given serious consideration, the best thing to do is predict some phenomenon that has yet to be observed, and is not predicted by the standard model. Are there any candidates? E.g. it seems to me that if the electron is not point-like, this should show up at suitably high energies.Again it's not "my theory", I've just made some kind of a contribution. I've got quite a few predictions actually, though not that much related to the electron, and they lack formalism. But here's an interesting one - the eversion of an electron into a positron. It sounds like it totally breaks the rules, and I wouldn't stake my reputation on it, but it's the Dirac string trick. Hence I keep a sharp eye out for any positrons turning up where they aren't expected.

This is bordering on a purely semantic argument. If I observe an electron moving past me with uniform velocity, I can measure a magnetic field. I can also define it rigorously as the axial vector obtained from the space-space components of the e/m tensor field. It's every bit as real as the notion of energy, or momentum, or indeed velocity. They're not Lorentz invariant concepts, sure, but directly relate to measurements I can make in a particular reference frame.Yes, this is a semantic argument. It all about meaning. You don't actually measure a magnetic field, you measure a magnetic force. You then define your magnetic field as a "force field". But the magnetic force field is only as real as a centripetal force field. The electromagnetic field is real. As I said earlier, the important distinction is separating what it is from what it does.

[Farsight]

(Not nothing: you've transferred momentum and one unit of spin to the nucleus.) Very little momentum is transferred to the nucleus, and let's come back to photon spin. When the electron and the positron annihilate the typical result is two 511keV photons. There's nothing left. What was an electron is now a 511keV photon. That's it.

Secondly: so what about "there's nothing else there"? I can also emit a photon from a radio antenna. It crashes into another radio antenna and makes some electrons move up and down. "There's nothing else there" in this case too.Huh? Electrons are there. This relates more to Compton scattering rather than annihilation, wherein a photon loses energy and causes electron motion.

The only thing there is to grasp about this is that photons do not carry any conserved quantum numbers.Not so. Quantum numbers don't tell you how pair production works, what the electron is, or how it and the positron vanish when annihilated. They're essentially labels covering up gaps in your understanding.

Again, I will note that QED has been keeping track of every measurable detail of pair production perfectly well for 60+ years.So explain how pair production works. When you can't, take a look through this thread again and see if you can work it out.

[Reality Check]

LOL. To put it bluntly, you just dismissed experimental physics.
LOL. The pot is calling the kettle black. Lets look at the experimental physics you are ignoring:

The electron has a measured charge. A photon does not.
The electron has a measured mass. A photon has no mass.
The electron has a measured magnetic moment. A photon has no magnetic moment.
The electron has a measured quantum mechanical spin of 1/2. A photon has a quantum mechanical spin of 1. There is no way that a spin of 1 can be made into a spin of 1/2.
You could be ignorant enough to treat the spin classically, put the photon into a path that includes a twist and think that the average spin is 1/2. You would be wrong:
The opposite spin to +1 is -1. An average would be 0.
Classical spins need a force to change their orientation.

And your continuing misconception about the electromagnetic field: Electric and magnetic fields are not "dual" as in one or the other which you seem to imply.
The electromagnetic field is experimentally measured to have electric and magnetic components. The theory of electromagnetic fields as introduced following the formalism of Hermann Minkowski explicitly states that the electromagnetic field tensor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_tensor) describing the field has electric and magnetic components.
You can for example have both an electric and magnetic field from an electron. The presence of magnetic fields due to the motion of a charge do depend on the selection of the observer's frame of reference. You can select a frame in which there is no motion and so no magnetic field. You can select a frame where there is motion and so a magnetic field.

[Reality Check]

So explain how pair production works. When you can't, take a look through this thread again and see if you can work it out.
I can answer this for ben m: pair production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production).
I am amazed that you are ignorant of Wikipedia and its many articles :rolleyes:.

[Farsight]

I wasn't giving a lecture on relativistic energy-momentum conservation, I was pointing out that you misuse (or used oddly) the word "inertia".There really is a symmetry between momentum and inertia.

But you're claiming to put one photon into a knot with itself and get a charge.Conservation of charge applies because you can't impose a rotation without experiencing a counter-rotation. Hence pair production applies. One photon splits to form to knots with opposite chirality.

There's no current in a photon. Just fields.Wrong. Think about magnetic dipole moment and my description of the electron as a self-trapped photon. The photon really is alternating current going this way ↑ then that way ↓ as it passes by.

I don't see any way in which that is relevant to your theory.[/QUOTE]How can you possibly dismiss Maxwell? The screw mechanism is crucial. Try out the right-hand-rule reamer and you'll see why it's relevant.

[Kwalish Kid]

Read my opening posts, again, I do have grounds for saying it's one field with a dualism. I've got Minkowski and Maxwell and Jefimenko backing me up on this.
Umm...no. You have cherry-picked quotations from them that seem to back you up if one doesn't actually read the mathematical statements of these three authors. You haven't made any attempt to address any of Minkowski's details, details clearly at odds with what you have said.
LOL. To put it bluntly, you just dismissed experimental physics.
Really? You are the one making grand claims that you admit you cannot back up with experiment.
Yes, this is a semantic argument. It all about meaning. You don't actually measure a magnetic field, you measure a magnetic force. You then define your magnetic field as a "force field". But the magnetic force field is only as real as a centripetal force field. The electromagnetic field is real. As I said earlier, the important distinction is separating what it is from what it does.
But how can we believe that your claims have anything at all to do with electromagnetism if we cannot use them to predict what anything does? As you seem to have admitted in this thread (as you have elsewhere) you have absolutely no idea how to do the proper mathematics.

[ben m]

Very little momentum is transferred to the nucleus, and let's come back to photon spin. When the electron and the positron annihilate the typical result is two 511keV photons. There's nothing left. What was an electron is now a 511keV photon. That's it.


Nope---it was both an electron and a positron, and now it's two photons. (Or three photons, or a neutrino-antineutrino pair, or mu mubar, or q qbar, etc., depending on the initial state.) You can't chop the initial state in half and expect it to make sense---it doesn't.


This relates more to Compton scattering rather than annihilation, wherein a photon loses energy and causes electron motion.

Yep. So why are you perfectly happy for photons to be created and destroyed in Compton scattering (having nothing to do with photons zipping into the internal structures of particles)---and at the same time insist that photon creation/destruction in e+e- pair processes must tell you something about the internal structure of the electron?


Not so. Quantum numbers don't tell you how pair production works, what the electron is, or how it and the positron vanish when annihilated. They're essentially labels covering up gaps in your understanding.

So explain how pair production works. When you can't, take a look through this thread again and see if you can work it out.

How pair production works? A quantum-mechanical photon wavefunction comes along and overlaps with another quantum-mechanical photon wavefunction. The two wavefunctions have some nonzero overlap with the quantum-mechanical wavefunction of an e+ e- pair so there is some probability that they collapse into that pair. (All of the Feynman diagram stuff you've ever seen---if indeed you've gotten that far---is in fact a shorthand way of organizing the algebra in otherwise-fairly-ordinary quantum mechanics.)

Sorry, Farsight, if you think that is gibberish than you also must think that Compton scattering is gibberish---it's the exact same process in every possible respect. (Calculate the QM wavefunction of an incoming photon and an incoming electron; if that overlaps with the wavefunction of an electron moving in a different direction, then the electron can collapse into that new wavefunction.) And everything else.

(This is the Nmpteenth time I've seen a mainstream-physics-is-wrong claim which reinvents the word "how" as a vague philosophical dunce-hat which placed on any physics claims whatsoever except the ones the crackpot himself is making.)

[ben m]

There really is a symmetry between momentum and inertia.

Momentum is momentum; I can measure it in any reference frame you like. I can measure p=0 in some frame and p != 0 in another. Inertia is ... well, it's basically rest mass, maybe you'd like to formulate it as relativistic mass, but whatever it is it's something that again you can measure in any reference frame you like.


Conservation of charge applies because you can't impose a rotation without experiencing a counter-rotation. Hence pair production applies. One photon splits to form to knots with opposite chirality.


It's odd that you're so confident of that for a theory that you have absolutely no way to evaluate. What you should be saying is "I think it will work out that conservation of charge applies because ..."

Anyway, it's gibberish. I can fire all sorts of probes into the center of an electron. I can scatter a neutrino off an electron (a process which flips its spin) and optionally turn it into a muon; I can scatter an electron off of a proton and make a neutrino plus a neutron; I can do all sorts of things which obviously deliver a swift kick---much swifter than mere e+ e- annihilation--- to whatever the heck was once inside the electron. Yet no experiment ever performed has managed to tweak charge conservation. You've invented some sort of knot structure completely arbitrarily guessed that this knot gives you charge. Then you equally arbitrarily say that the knot can't change signs under any stimulus whatsoever. Then you---again, completely arbitrarily, lacking any physical details whatesoever---guess that the knot can annihilate with an counter-knot.

You know what that is, Farsight? You're inventing a conserved quantum number. The same thing you were criticizing about mainstream physics. (Except your invention does not, as far as I can tell, actually yield the quantum number you want it to, nor does it conserve it.)


Wrong. Think about magnetic dipole moment and my description of the electron as a self-trapped photon. The photon really is alternating current going this way ↑ then that way ↓ as it passes by.


There is no current in a photon; there's an E field and B field. The time-dependencies make displacement currents, not real currents. But seriously, at this point you've already left Maxwell's Equations far, far behind. "A photon going in a circle" is not an actual solution for Maxwell's Equations to begin with. "a photon making AC currents which look like a monopole from far away" is explicitly forbidden by Maxwell's Equations.

[ben m]

Sorry guys, I've been busy. I can only give so much time to conversation.

Read my opening posts, again, I do have grounds for saying it's one field with a dualism. I've got Minkowski and Maxwell and Jefimenko backing me up on this.


Don't try to scare off criticism with big names. Everyone has agreed that it is "really one field"---not one field vector, rather one electromagnetic field tensor---which manifests in a perfectly clear and easy-to-discuss way as an E vector and a B vector. But any time someone mentions the E field you get all huffy. This is dumb.


It's an aspect, not a component. When you're at rest with respect to the electron you see the EM field as an electric field. Move past the electron and you see it as a magnetic field.


Actually, the moving observer sees both an E and a B field in this case.

[Farsight]

I'm not making myself understood, perhaps. For a given length L of closed twisted path, any wave with a wavelength L/n (for n=1, 2, ...) could wrap itself around that path without interfering destructively (assuming we can get photons to travel in such a way in the first place). The energy of the nth mode would be nhc/L (h is Planck's constant, c the speed of light). The mass of the system is given by this energy. Thus, if an electron-like particle is possible, with the correct mass, then so is a particle with n times the electron's mass for each n. There's no way to prevent it unless the higher-frequency photons somehow escape the binding mechanism.You're perhaps missing the important "nothing else there" point - the photon makes the photon travel in that closed path. Planck's constant applies to photons as per E=hf, and h has the dimensionality of momentum x distance. Think of LIGO trying to measure a gravitational wave via the lengthening/shortening of the arms, and think of this extension as "displacement current". In a nutshell the extension is common, and it's a distance - photons have the same amplitude. So only one wavelength will do to make a photon travel entirely through itself. That's why electrons come in one size only. There are some issues with ultra high energy photons, but that's another one for another day.

Postulating tighter loops multiplies the issue - for each size loop you'll have another series of modes. This is, of course, assuming a one-dimensional loop. Presumably you envisage a 2- or 3-dimensional volume in which the photon moves. The number of modes increases accordingly - I'm sure Wiki has an article on waves in a 3d box, to get an idea - and each mode would be an observable particle in your model. Now, this would be a good thing if it meant your theory predicted the correct masses for the mu and tau leptons (relative to the electron mass, presumably), but the lepton masses don't follow such a simple progression AFAIK. So instead you need a mechanism for inhibiting these modes, and perhaps another mechanism for explaining the mu and tau.Yes, this concerns 3-dimensional volumes, and I did mean to look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koide_formula. But remember how many stable static particles there are: Two, times two antiparticles. We haven't found a stable pentaquark yet, or anything else that corresponds to this: http://www.knotplot.com/knot-theory/torus_xing.html.

[Tubbythin]

LOL. To put it bluntly, you just dismissed experimental physics.
Er no. I dismissed your theory because you:
"can't even give [us] a decent mathematical description of the electron
Why would I have the slightest bit of interst in your theory. You're trying to replace QED, one of the most phenomenally succesful theories in scientific history with something with no qunatitative basis whatsoever.


It amazes me how people dismiss evidence and Einstein and anything that isn't in the mathematics they know and isn't what they were taught. The parallel with YECs dismissing fossils and strata and continental drift is marked.

Wow, you think YEC "theories" are equivalent to the most precisely tested theory in the history of physics that I prefer to your nonsense? That's absolutely hilarious.


No, I'm familiar with them. They're describing the forces you feel but there's only one causative field, not two. That's why it's the electromagnetic field. Note that "Maxwell's equations" are Heaviside's equations. I've read the original Maxwell. You should too, then you'll appreciate that what I've been saying here comes from Maxwell. He didn't get the vortexes right, he thought they were in the intervening space, but once you understand all this it's amazing how close he was.
So stop complaining that we can't consider an electric field and a magnetic field.

[Farsight]

You need to expand on this. An e/m wave is not the same thing as an alternating current in the usual sense of the phrase. A current involves a flux of charged particles across a surface. In AC (in the normal sense), the positive flux during the first half-cycle is cancelled by the negative flux in the second half-cycle, but there is still a flow of charged particles. Are you thinking of displacement "current" by any chance?It's related to displacement current, but not as it's commonly understood. In a photon we see a positive then negative "flux" and no charged particle. We perform pair production, then in the electron we see a magnetic dipole moment.

Farsight: the reason I cited old Mr. Singularitarian is that he was also someone whose major activity on this board was accusing everyone who disagreed with him of not knowing basic physics. It made for some amusing but basically pointless threads. You are in danger of tacking in that direction...Noted. I'd be grateful if people could chip in to point out where I'm correct and counter dismissal via the hoary old "cherry picking" technique.

Farsight? Tubby is right. Pair production is less important than either PE or Compton scattering up to maybe 5 MeV.It's still of crucial importance. We create mass and charge and all those electron/positron properties by doing something to a photon.

a) Ah, the argument from incredulity. You don't find the intrinsic spin of the electron personally satisfying, so therefore it's wrong. Lacking a specific way in which it went wrong you blame it on a textbook learning and a lack of out-of-the-box thinking. Seriously, though: everything in quantum mechanics is compatible with classical physics. The whole shebang is nonclassical. Spins, magnetic moments, CP violation, atoms, diffraction, pi-bonding, bremsstrahlung, quantum dots, superconductors. Don't insist that classical intuition is somehow "privileged" over quantum mechanics---that's an accident of history (Newton was born first) and of size (humans are very large compared to any relevant quantum size scale.)Sorry ben, but mine is the rational scientific argument here. I don't mean to be impolite, but I'm afraid yours above is "crystal spheres" surpasseth all human understanding argument. And really, the tone of some on this thread is very close to the tone of YECs when faced with the scientific evidence of evolution.

b) We can't consider that it's a Mobius strip---unless you want to get into topological defects, which I don't think you do---because that's a mechanical model and therefore incompatible with the quantum mechanical nature of particles.I'm happy to talk about topological defects. I'll demonstrate how the mechanical model is compatible with the QM nature of particles.

c) A photon going in a circle doesn't have [to?] generate a magnetic moment.True.

d) Pair production and annihilation has nothing to do with photons specifically. There's an absolutely-identical process involving two neutrinos (nu nubar -> e+ e- and e+ e- --> nu nubar) or two quarks (e+ e- --> q qbar) or almost anything you like. At low energies the cross section is very small, but at collider energies (200+ GeV) the two processes are very similar. Should we be getting all excited about how the electron is really "made of" a self-trapped neutrino? No, because there is no evidence anywhere in particle physics that this is a productive way of thinking.That's a catch-22 non-argument. Think about the neutrino and its properties. Forget about its lepton classification. On properties alone, which is it more like? The photon or the electron? Look, I'll cut to the chase: they're all stress-energy configurations. They involve rotations, hence Maxwell's quaternions and the importance of symmetry for the standard model.


Sorry, I have to go. If anybody wants to talk seriously offline, PM me for an email address and I'll dedicate more time.

[Reality Check]

Noted. I'd be grateful if people could chip in to point out where I'm correct and counter dismissal via the hoary old "cherry picking" technique.
Unfortunately there does not seem to be much that you have posted that is correct. The only posts containing correct points are the ones where you mention standard physics. But you generally spoil this by misinterpreting it, e.g. the electromagnetic field is defined as a field consisting of electric and magnetic components. You seem to redefine this as a "dual" field consisting of just electric components sometimes, just magnetic components at other times but never both.

Thus we are forced to just point out your errors.
For example, you just stated "It's related to displacement current, but not as it's commonly understood. In a photon we see a positive then negative "flux" and no charged particle. We perform pair production, then in the electron we see a magnetic dipole moment."

That is not right. There is no negative or positive "flux" in a photon. Thus the only person who can see one is you.
A photon has no electric charge to make a current or a flux. A photon is an electromagnetic wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave) considered as a particle. An electromagnetic wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave) has no charges. All it has is electromagnetic fields. An electromagnetic wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave) is generated by charges, e.g. the moving electrons in a radio antenna, but it does not carry any charge with it.
ETA
There is the displacement current (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_current) but in an electromagnetic wave it is the rate of change of the flux density of the electric field (not an actual electrical current). The displacement current can be used with Ampere's Law assuming there is no bound or free current density contributing to current to derive the electromagnetic wave equation.

[Tubbythin]

Sorry ben, but mine is the rational scientific argument here.

You are astoundingly arrogant. You have not presented a single shred of qualitative evidence and yet we're apparently the ones that act like YECs and your argument is rational and scientific?

[ben m]

It's related to displacement current, but not as it's commonly understood. In a photon we see a positive then negative "flux" and no charged particle. We perform pair production, then in the electron we see a magnetic dipole moment.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Why don't you do what my sophomores just did on their midterms: give the electromagnetic field equation for a photon propagating in the z-direction, linearly polarized in x. Then show us what aspect of the displacement current is not "commonly understood".


It's still of crucial importance. We create mass and charge and all those electron/positron properties by doing something to a photon.


I was just pointing out that you incorrectly called Tubby wrong on the very specific point of the threshhold behavior.


Sorry ben, but mine is the rational scientific argument here. I don't mean to be impolite, but I'm afraid yours above is "crystal spheres" surpasseth all human understanding argument.


Which part of it? Quantum mechanics? Yes, there are indeed things in quantum mechanics that seem difficult to understand. If you write a theory which is "easy to understand" (in the standard way that nonexperts want quantum mechanics to be easy, i.e. to make it determinate and/or local), in a very very general sense these alternate theories are inconsistent with experiment in Bell's Inequality tests.

Or---vertices? The fact that Schrodinger's Equation + relativity can be rearranged into Feynman diagrams? No, these things do not surpass understanding, they're really pretty straightforward. The fact that the Compton scattering diagram and the pair-production diagram are the same thing?


That's a catch-22 non-argument. Think about the neutrino and its properties. Forget about its lepton classification.


I don't know what you mean by "forget about its lepton classification". The lepton classification is a consequence of its properties; we look at the list of neutrino properties and see that neutrinos look exactly like an electron minus the electric charge. Both fermions, both massive, both obey the same conservation laws, both couple to everything in exactly the same ways except that the electron also couples to charge.

[Kwalish Kid]

Noted. I'd be grateful if people could chip in to point out where I'm correct and counter dismissal via the hoary old "cherry picking" technique.
You are correct in that Minkowski once wrote about electromagnetism. You are incorrect in anything you have ever said about Minkowski. Those of us that have read Minkowksi can see that immediately.

Claims about cherry-picking may seem hoary to you since you have been flogging your theory for years using the same technique. You should try learning physics: it is a much more reliable route to producing physics.

Regardless, this does nothing to answer any questions about the physics, which seems to be exactly why you were banned from the baut forums.

[Farsight]

Yes I do get it. That one field is called the electromagnetic field. That field has 2 components. One component is called the electric field. The other component is called the magnetic field.Noting ct's comment re semantics, I'll say OK.

Nope. It's always an electromagnetic field. When you're an electron without relative motion that one field has only electric components. When you're an electron with relative motion that one field has electric and magnetic component.Now we're starting to see the problem. It's always an electromagnetic field, so it always has two "components". One of these doesn't disappear just because you have no relative motion. You just can't see it. That's why "aspects" is a better word.

You are wrong. If you have a stationary electron then the electromagnetic field just has electric components. There is only an electric field. There is no magnetic field.No! There's an electromagnetic field. That's what's there. And it has a disposition, a geometry that causes radial motion if you had no relative motion, and circular motion if you do.

If you have a moving electron the electromagnetic field [has] electric and magnetic components. There is an electric field. There is a magnetic field.Think of a cylinder. If you look at it end-on, it looks like a circle. If you look at it side-on, it looks like a cuboid. It hasn't changed because you moved. It's the same for the electromagnetic field. You just see it differently.

The motion of the electron relative to the observer has created a magnetic field. That magnetic field did not exist before. It can be removed by moving with the electron.The electromagnetic field exists. A moving charge doesn't create a magnetic field. That's just how you see the electromagnetic field when in relative motion through it. Think about the right-hand rule, and that vertical stack of electrons. You're motionless with respect to them, and you say they have only an electric field. Now, without changing the electrons, you move vertically down past them. All you've done is moved. You haven't altered the electrons in any way, or their electromagnetic field. You haven't created a magnetic field.

[Belz...]

Put it through google translate to find out what he really said.

Yes, Google will know best.

[Farsight]

I'm perfectly familiar with pair production thanks.So explain how it works.

But near threshold energies, Compton scattering is more likely by at least an order of magnitude. In high Z materials the photoelectric effect is also more important... Like I said, 1.022 keV photons will very rarely pair produce.Shrug. Pair production happens.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Pairproduction.png

Its my understanding that the Dirac equation explains the idea of intrinsic spin very nicely. The fact that it doesn't agree with your classical intuition is your problem. Hell, it even predicted the existence of the positron.You don't understand that either. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation#History and note "Despite these successes, Dirac's theory is flawed by its neglect of the possibility of creating and destroying particles, one of the basic consequences of relativity."

I can consider it. I can also rule it out as ridiculous.LOL. A carefully crafted argument.

[Farsight]

..cherry-picking ..ignoring ..mathematical details ..cherry-picked ..obviously flawed ..misrepresenting ..poor ..gross error.Another non-argument.

[Belz...]

I can't do it, it's too difficult

So, basically we're supposed to take your word for it, although you can't even verify the results for yourself ?

[Farsight]

A 1022 keV photon will never pair produce in the vicinity of a stationary nucleus.

Sure, there's enough energy there to produce 2 particles of 511 keV/c^2 mass each, but there's no energy left over (ie they will be stationary), and it can be seen that the total momentum of the system is not conserved.

Total p before: 1022 keV/c

Total p after: 0 keV/cTrue. I do talk about a +1022kev photon. Apologies if the shorthand isn't clear or if I missed out the +. There's some energy lost to the nucleus, and you need more still to send the electron and positron flying apart.

[Belz...]

Shrug. Pair production happens.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Pairproduction.png

Ooh, pretty colors!

[Farsight]

Well I’m not sure what you are referring to as “shuffling” and I certainly understand the basis for all those terms.Sorry, I meant to write "shuttling" to indicate an electron moving back and forth.

Yes they are expressing it in terms of energy. You do understand that a force applied through a distance is a change in energy, don’t you?Yes. Do you understand that gravity does not add energy to a falling body?

So there is nothing inconsistent between that reference and what I stated. One could also refer to it in terms of momentum, charge and even the gravitational attraction of two Planck masses. However since I was specifically referring to the force between two charges it is simply consistent to put that in terms of, well, force. What I don’t see in that reference you cited is “kissing numbers”, your geometric contrivances or a “running” value.Noted.

I read this thread from the beginning prior to my first post here, so ‘catching up’ is not an issue for me. Perhaps if your geometric contrivances actually got you the correct value it wouldn’t be an issue for you either and your value would not have to be “running” to “catch up” to the actual value.Again noted. Let's come back to alpha after we've all understood the geometry of the electromagnetic field and have some understanding of pair production.

[sol invictus]

It's still of crucial importance. We create mass and charge and all those electron/positron properties by doing something to a photon.

No! How many times do you have to be told this: charge cannot be created or destroyed. Pair production does not create charge; it creates a charge and an anti-charge, with the net charge equal to zero as it was before.

This is very very important, because it proves that the electron cannot be made of photons. Electrons are charged, photons are not. Period. End of story.


That's a catch-22 non-argument. Think about the neutrino and its properties. Forget about its lepton classification. On properties alone, which is it more like? The photon or the electron?


The electron is much more similar to the neutrino than it is to the photon - so since electron-positron pairs can be produced from two neutrinos, I guess (by your childish "logic") that means electrons are made of neutrinos. Electrons and neutrinos are both fermions, both spin 1/2, both massive, both carry weak hypercharge -1, transform in fundamental representations of the gauge groups, and both carry lepton number. Photons are bosons, spin 1, massless, carry zero weak hypercharge, transform in the adjoint, and carry no conserved quantum numbers (apart from angular momentum, momentum, and energy).

[Farsight]

LOL. The pot is calling the kettle black. Lets look at the experimental physics you are ignoring:

The electron has a measured charge. A photon does not.
The electron has a measured mass. A photon has no mass.
The electron has a measured magnetic moment. A photon has no magnetic moment.
The electron has a measured quantum mechanical spin of 1/2. A photon has a quantum mechanical spin of 1. There is no way that a spin of 1 can be made into a spin of 1/2.
You could be ignorant enough to treat the spin classically, put the photon into a path that includes a twist and think that the average spin is 1/2. You would be wrong:
The opposite spin to +1 is -1. An average would be 0.
Classical spins need a force to change their orientation.
I'm not ignoring any of the above. Pair production is where we make an electron and a positron from a photon. We create charge, and mass, magnetic moment, and spin 1/2. Why do you cling to the conviction that it's something mystical that cannot be explained classically? It can.

And your continuing misconception about the electromagnetic field: Electric and magnetic fields are not "dual" as in one or the other which you seem to imply. The electromagnetic field is experimentally measured to have electric and magnetic components. The theory of electromagnetic fields as introduced following the formalism of Hermann Minkowski explicitly states that the electromagnetic field tensor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_tensor) describing the field has electric and magnetic components.
You can for example have both an electric and magnetic field from an electron. The presence of magnetic fields due to the motion of a charge do depend on the selection of the observer's frame of reference. You can select a frame in which there is no motion and so no magnetic field. You can select a frame where there is motion and so a magnetic field.I have no issue with The electromagnetic field has electric and magnetic components. But there is no sense in which relative motion creates a magnetic field. A reference frame isn't something that exists. It's just a formalism for describing motion and measurement. When you move, you measure it differently. That electromagnetic field didn't change just because you moved through it. Do you get this yet?

[sol invictus]

Oh and by the way, just another reason electrons cannot be made of photons: spin. We understand spin down to about the most profound level we understand anything in the world. If the laws of physics are Poincare invariant, the possible spins for particles correspond to the representations of the Poincare group. Those include spin 0, spin 1/2, spin 1, etc., and those representations combine in certain precise ways that follow entirely from the group's structure.

Electrons are spin 1/2, and photons are spin 1. It is impossible to combine any number of spin 1 representations to make a spin 1/2 representation.

On the other hand it is possible to combine 2 (or any even number) of spin 1/2 reps to make a spin 1 rep, or multiple spin 1 reps. That's why the processes electron-positron <--> 2 photons are allowed. The electron and positron are in an entangled state with spin 1, as are the photons.

[Kwalish Kid]

Another non-argument.
Why is it that you refuse to answer any of my questions? Do they cut so deep that you can't face yourself when you consider them?

Just show us how the mathematics in the Minkowski paper that you cited match up with your claims about the appearance of the electromagnetic field. This is something that should be straightforward.

[Farsight]

Momentum is momentum; I can measure it in any reference frame you like. I can measure p=0 in some frame and p != 0 in another. Inertia is ... well, it's basically rest mass, maybe you'd like to formulate it as relativistic mass, but whatever it is it's something that again you can measure in any reference frame you like.It's "rest energy". It's the amount of stress-energy-momentum that isn't moving in aggregate with respect to you. Note the phrase "in aggregate". It is still moving, but its path changes, keeping it local to you and in what you deem to be a system. It's going nowhere fast. Hence the massless photon in the mirror box adds mass. If you only had a photon going round and round on its own, without a box, that would comprise a system with mass. If you then move with respect to this, you could then assign it a relativistic mass. That's rest mass plus kinetic energy, and the latter is a measure of how fast this thing that's going nowhere fast, is going somewhere. Think it through. Momentum is just a distance-based measure of energy/momentum, whilst energy is a time-based measure. Hence E=hf and p=hf/c, because c is a conversion factor between our measures of distance and time.

It's odd that you're so confident of that for a theory that you have absolutely no way to evaluate. What you should be saying is "I think it will work out that conservation of charge applies because ..."I'm confident of this rotation and counter-rotation because it's essentially Newton's third law of motion. Action and reaction.

Anyway, it's gibberish. I can fire all sorts of probes into the center of an electron. I can scatter a neutrino off an electron (a process which flips its spin) and optionally turn it into a muon; I can scatter an electron off of a proton and make a neutrino plus a neutron; I can do all sorts of things which obviously deliver a swift kick---much swifter than mere e+ e- annihilation--- to whatever the heck was once inside the electron.It's all just different configurations.

Yet no experiment ever performed has managed to tweak charge conservation.I know. I was a little surprised when I stumbled across that Dirac String trick. I sat there blinking for a while saying what?

You've invented some sort of knot structure completely arbitrarily guessed that this knot gives you charge.I didn't invent it. Kelvin invented it originally, but he was thinking of atoms rather than charged particles. Maxwell didn't quite get it right, and I suppose he was too early too. Williamson and van der Mark thought of it in 1991, and Qiu-Hong Hu in 2004. He was at ABB50/25 in Bristol in December with a poster on it, talking to Michael Atiyah plus others.

Then you equally arbitrarily say that the knot can't change signs under any stimulus whatsoever. Then you---again, completely arbitrarily, lacking any physical details whatesoever---guess that the knot can annihilate with a counter-knot.What's the problem? Would you prefer chiral vorton to knot?

You know what that is, Farsight? You're inventing a conserved quantum number. The same thing you were criticizing about mainstream physics. (Except your invention does not, as far as I can tell, actually yield the quantum number you want it to, nor does it conserve it.)Numerology doesn't explain it.

There is no current in a photon; there's an E field and B field. The time-dependencies make displacement currents, not real currents.Yet these displacement currents make electrons and positrons, and when you move those electrons and positrons, you get "real" currents.

But seriously, at this point you've already left Maxwell's Equations far, far behind. "A photon going in a circle" is not an actual solution for Maxwell's Equations to begin with. "A photon making AC currents which look like a monopole from far away" is explicitly forbidden by Maxwell's Equations.Heaviside's recast of Maxwell's equations left Maxwell behind. Read On Physical Lines of Force and you'll see how it relates to what I've been saying.

Don't try to scare off criticism with big names. Everyone has agreed that it is "really one field"..Those big names should tell you that this isn't something I've invented. It has pedigree. And if everybody has agreed that it's one field, can we agree that it's a twist/turn field as demonstrated by the right hand rule?

---not one field vector, rather one electromagnetic field tensor---which manifests in a perfectly clear and easy-to-discuss way as an E vector and a B vector. But any time someone mentions the E field you get all huffy. This is dumb.It's an important point, and come on, it's the other guys getting huffy, not me.

Actually, the moving observer sees both an E and a B field in this case.Agreed. Thanks for pointing that out.

[sol invictus]

On this silliness about the EM field:


I have no issue with The electromagnetic field has electric and magnetic components. But there is no sense in which relative motion creates a magnetic field. A reference frame isn't something that exists. It's just a formalism for describing motion and measurement. When you move, you measure it differently. That electromagnetic field didn't change just because you moved through it. Do you get this yet?

"That electromagnetic field didn't change just because you moved through it."

Let's see about that. Lorentz transformations include rotations and boosts (changes in velocity). Mathematically, those are very very similar. When acting on the EM field-strength tensor, rotations change the components of the electric and magnetic fields as if they were ordinary vectors but do not mix the electric and magnetic components, while boosts mix the electric and magnetic fields. So the situation you're getting so worked up about is very analogous to the effect of a rotation on a vector, and so let's consider that instead (since it's easier to visualize).

So here, I'll translate your statement into one about vectors: "The direction that spaceship is moving didn't change just because you turned around." Is that true?

Let's say originally the spaceship (I'm floating in outer space, with only this single ship in view and no other points of reference) was moving from my left to my right. After I turn around it's moving from my right to my left. So it did change direction relative to me (or more accurately relative to a vector that's fixed to my body, for example the one pointing in the direction I can see). Obviously the ship didn't change direction with respect to something else just because I turned around (unless that thing also rotated), but it did change direction relative to me. Since "relative to me" is just as good as any other frame, I'm perfectly justified in saying that it did change direction just because I turned around.

The analogy to the EM field under boosts is much exact, so if you agree with the above, you agree that the EM field did change "just because" you moved through it. If you don't, it's just a matter of semantics - the math is totally unambiguous (for those that understand it, at least).

[Farsight]

Nope---it was both an electron and a positron, and now it's two photons. (Or three photons, or a neutrino-antineutrino pair, or mu mubar, or q qbar, etc., depending on the initial state.) You can't chop the initial state in half and expect it to make sense---it doesn't. One electron plus one positron typically yields two photons. What is the problem?

http://japan.gehealthcare.com/cwcjapan/static/rad/nm/etraining/images/annihilations.gif

Yep. So why are you perfectly happy for photons to be created and destroyed in Compton scattering (having nothing to do with photons zipping into the internal structures of particles)---and at the same time insist that photon creation/destruction in e+e- pair processes must tell you something about the internal structure of the electron?Compton scattering doesn't destroy photons, it robs them of energy. An inverse Compton gives it back. Electron properties tell us about the structure of the electron. Mass, charge, spin, magnetic dipole moment, zitterbewegung. There's something moving in there, and it's going round. How anybody can dismiss pair production and accept the mysticism that parcels all this up as "instrinsic" and "elementary" and still consider themselves a rational scientist beats me.

How pair production works? A quantum-mechanical photon wavefunction comes along and overlaps with another quantum-mechanical photon wavefunction. The two wavefunctions have some nonzero overlap with the quantum-mechanical wavefunction of an e+ e- pair so there is some probability that they collapse into that pair. (All of the Feynman diagram stuff you've ever seen---if indeed you've gotten that far---is in fact a shorthand way of organizing the algebra in otherwise-fairly-ordinary quantum mechanics.)That's no explanation at all. It's sleight-of-hand. You don't really know.

Sorry, Farsight, if you think that is gibberish than you also must think that Compton scattering is gibberish---it's the exact same process in every possible respect. (Calculate the QM wavefunction of an incoming photon and an incoming electron; if that overlaps with the wavefunction of an electron moving in a different direction, then the electron can collapse into that new wavefunction.) And everything else.There's an underlying reality to those wavefunctions. You know when Einstein was debating with Bohr about the Copenhagen Interpretation? Einstein was right.

(This is the Nmpteenth time I've seen a mainstream-physics-is-wrong claim which reinvents the word "how" as a vague philosophical dunce-hat which placed on any physics claims whatsoever except the ones the crackpot himself is making.)Here comes the ad-hominem abuse. People usually start dishing it when they can't defend their stance.

[Cuddles]

I'd be grateful if people could chip in to point out where I'm correct

I have no doubt people will do that just as soon as you get something correct.

[sol invictus]

One electron plus one positron typically yields two photons. What is the problem?

Sun+seed typical yields a tree. Does that mean trees are made of sun and seeds?

That's no explanation at all. It's sleight-of-hand. You don't really know.

What a ridiculous farce. Your explanation is a bunch of meaningless words (words that don't even rise to the level of sleight-of-hand). Ben's is a verbal description of a mathematical calculation one can do using the most precise and precisely tested theory in the history of human thought.

What's oddly fascinating is that you, like most of your ilk, can't see this elephant in the room. You can't see the complete hypocrisy of your stance, or recognize the irony in accusing others of ignoring evidence. It's an interesting lesson in human nature.

[Farsight]

Unfortunately there does not seem to be much that you have posted that is correct. The only posts containing correct points are the ones where you mention standard physics. But you generally spoil this by misinterpreting it, e.g. the electromagnetic field is defined as a field consisting of electric and magnetic components... Come off it. Your first post on this thread was an accusation of "quoting from authority". Dismissing Maxwell! Then a little later you said: "A magnetic field is always produced whenever a charged particle like an electron is moving with respect to the observer" along with "There is a magnetic field generated".

You seem to redefine this as a "dual" field consisting of just electric components sometimes, just magnetic components at other times but never both..It is both, that was a simplification.

Thus we are forced to just point out your errors. For example, you just stated "It's related to displacement current, but not as it's commonly understood. In a photon we see a positive then negative "flux" and no charged particle. We perform pair production, then in the electron we see a magnetic dipole moment." That is not right. There is no negative or positive "flux" in a photon. Thus the only person who can see one is you.The word flux is in quotes because that was ctamblyn's term, not mine.

A photon has no electric charge to make a current or a flux. A photon is an electromagnetic wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave) considered as a particle. An electromagnetic wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave) has no charges. All it has is electromagnetic fields. An electromagnetic wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave) is generated by charges, e.g. the moving electrons in a radio antenna, but it does not carry any charge with it.I know a photon has no electric charge. But look at what pair production is telling you: charge is created from an electromagnetic wave.

There is the displacement current (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_current) but in an electromagnetic wave it is the rate of change of the flux density of the electric field (not an actual electrical current). The displacement current can be used with Ampere's Law assuming there is no bound or free current density contributing to current to derive the electromagnetic wave equation.Like I said, it's related to displacement current, but not as it's commonly understood. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_current. It's not a current of moving electrons, but it really is a current. And since a photon always passes you at c, it really is alternating.

[Farsight]

You are astoundingly arrogant. You have not presented a single shred of qualitative evidence and yet we're apparently the ones that act like YECs and your argument is rational and scientific?Look at my second post and the right hand rule: http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=5700835&postcount=2
Look at my other posts. There's evidence galore, but you refuse to admit it as evidence because you've got Morton's Demon sitting on your shoulder. Read this:

http://www.answersincreation.org/mortond.htm

Make sure you read it. Then think about it. The difference between you and me Tubby, is that three years back I realised that there were things that I thought I understood, but I didn't. And then I really understood the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Those YECs aren't so special. Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry. Even though they don't understand the electron.

[Farsight]

I have no idea what you are talking about. Why don't you do what my sophomores just did on their midterms: give the electromagnetic field equation for a photon propagating in the z-direction, linearly polarized in x. Then show us what aspect of the displacement current is not "commonly understood".Because giving the equations doesn't get to the heart of it. You cannot understand what the mathematics means using mathematics.

I was just pointing out that you incorrectly called Tubby wrong on the very specific point of the threshhold behavior. I can't see that: http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=5722143&postcount=96

Which part of it? Quantum mechanics? Yes, there are indeed things in quantum mechanics that seem difficult to understand. If you write a theory which is "easy to understand" (in the standard way that nonexperts want quantum mechanics to be easy, i.e. to make it determinate and/or local), in a very very general sense these alternate theories are inconsistent with experiment in Bell's Inequality tests.See http://arxiv.org/find/grp_physics/1/au:+christian_joy/0/1/0/all/0/1 and http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=72&pi=Joy_Christian. Rotations do not commute. And it is easy to understand. The quantum of quantum mechanics is a common displacement. And it's a real displacement, because action h is momentum x distance. Then all the mystic woo of the Copenhagen Interpretation and the Many Worlds Interpretation is totally blown away.

Or---vertices? The fact that Schrodinger's Equation + relativity can be rearranged into Feynman diagrams? No, these things do not surpass understanding, they're really pretty straightforward. The fact that the Compton scattering diagram and the pair-production diagram are the same thing?No, vortexes. Electron spin is two dimensional, it really is a rotation, it's a vorton.

I don't know what you mean by "forget about its lepton classification". The lepton classification is a consequence of its properties; we look at the list of neutrino properties and see that neutrinos look exactly like an electron minus the electric charge. Both fermions, both massive, both obey the same conservation laws, both couple to everything in exactly the same ways except that the electron also couples to charge.You're forgetting something. The neutrino travels. Like a photon. It doesn't look exactly like an electron minus the electric charge.

Re neutrino mass, remember what I said about the symmetry between momentum and inertia. When you keep the photon going nowhere fast in one place it exhibits mass. When it's travelling at c it doesn't. There's a sliding scale in between. So if the speed of a neutrino varies...

[ben m]

I'm confident of this rotation and counter-rotation because it's essentially Newton's third law of motion. Action and reaction.


There's a long way between "Newton's third law is true" and "some sort of topological charge is a conserved quantity with a U(1) symmetry"

A long, long, long way.

[Farsight]

Yes, Google will know best.Better still, get a German friend to translate it for you. It matches the google translation. There's Einstein saying a curvature of the rays of light can only occur when the speed of light varies with location. But people who have been brought up on the constancy of the speed of light will not accept it.

So, basically we're supposed to take your word for it, although you can't even verify the results for yourself?No. You're supposed to look at the evidence and think for yourself. Evidence like the Shapiro delay and the GPS clock adjustment. GPS uses atomic clocks. They use microwaves. Light. Gravitational time dilation isn't direct evidence of "time going slower". It's direct evidence of light going slower. And as per the evidence of pair production, you're made of the stuff.

[ben m]

You're forgetting something. The neutrino travels. Like a photon. It doesn't look exactly like an electron minus the electric charge.

Re neutrino mass, remember what I said about the symmetry between momentum and inertia. When you keep the photon going nowhere fast in one place it exhibits mass. When it's travelling at c it doesn't. There's a sliding scale in between. So if the speed of a neutrino varies...

It sounds like you've misunderstood basic kinematics on this point.

A neutrino has exactly the same kinematics as an electron. You can fly alongside an at-rest neutrino and measure its rest mass if you like. Also, if a neutrino (or an electron, or anything else) is bouncing back and forth in a box, its kinetic energy contributes to the rest mass of the box just like a photon's does.

[Farsight]

No! How many times do you have to be told this: charge cannot be created or destroyed...Here I have an electron, a charged particle. It's got charge. And here I have a positron, another charged particle. It's got charge too. Put them together, and voila, the charge is gone. Annihilated. Destroyed. Yes, net charge is always conserved, but so is angular momentum, and you can create it. Just spin a wheel. Out in space with nothing to brace against you need a counter-rotation to make it happen. But there's nothing fundamental about it. Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.

[ben m]

Because giving the equations doesn't get to the heart of it. You cannot understand what the mathematics means using mathematics.

Give the equations first. Then use them to describe what you're getting to the heart of.

[The Man]

Sorry, I meant to write "shuttling" to indicate an electron moving back and forth.


Ok, but where was I referring to or requiring there to be an “electron moving back and forth”?


Yes. Do you understand that gravity does not add energy to a falling body?

You do understand that a change in energy does not always infer adding energy, don’t you?


Noted.

Again noted. Let's come back to alpha after we've all understood the geometry of the electromagnetic field and have some understanding of pair production.

Ok, but since your assert you can not actually calculate your “geometry of the electromagnetic field” you can’t even show that you understand it as actually the “geometry of the electromagnetic field”. So you are simply at an impasse.

[Kwalish Kid]

Look at my second post and the right hand rule: http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=5700835&postcount=2
Look at my other posts. There's evidence galore, but you refuse to admit it as evidence because you've got Morton's Demon sitting on your shoulder.
You have been asked many times to demonstrate how the diagrams in that post relate to the actual measurements that people make of electromagnetism. You have refused to offer a single equation that relates your pictures to measurements of electromagnetic phenomena. This is what is required for evidence in physics.

As you seem to have admitted, you lack the skills to evaluate your theory. Is this correct, or can you actually show us the relationship between your pictures and experiments?
Read this:

http://www.answersincreation.org/mortond.htm
This sounds exactly like you. You often claim that things are simple, but when you are asked to demonstrate the simplicity, you claim that things are too complicated. You have done this more than once in this very thread.

Indeed, you jump from forum to forum when the questions get too difficult. (The only exceptions are where you are thrown out for not answering questions.) Is this not the same behaviour that you are chastising?
Make sure you read it. Then think about it. The difference between you and me Tubby, is that three years back I realised that there were things that I thought I understood, but I didn't. And then I really understood the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Those YECs aren't so special. Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry. Even though they don't understand the electron.
But can you demonstrate that the equations that govern the motion of an electron have anything to do with your pictures? If you can't how do you know that you are not fooling yourself with those pictures? This is not a question of understanding the mathematics, this is a question of whether or not what you are saying has anything at all to do with the mathematics.

[Farsight]

It sounds like you've misunderstood basic kinematics on this point. A neutrino has exactly the same kinematics as an electron. I haven't. An electron features two rotations. Ever wondered why there's a similarity between gravitomagnetism and electromagnetism? Here, look at this. I didn't write it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitomagnetism#Higher-order_effects

"Consider a toroidal mass with two degrees of rotation (both major axis and minor-axis spin, both turning inside out and revolving). This represents a "special case" in which gravitomagnetic effects generate a chiral corkscrew-like gravitational field around the object."

You can fly alongside an at-rest neutrino and measure its rest mass if you like.Yes, because the stress energy takes the form of a running loop. The Weyl spinor depicts it. It's going round the loop at c, so it can't be moving laterally at c.

Also, if a neutrino (or an electron, or anything else) is bouncing back and forth in a box, its kinetic energy contributes to the rest mass of the box just like a photon's does.No problem. But remember that kinetic energy is measuring the effect of how fast the "rest energy" is going. It's like asking how fast the energy that's going nowhere fast is going somewhere. It all comes down to motion in the end.

Sorry, I must go. Who wants to know how gravity works and how to unify it with the other forces?

[ctamblyn]

The word flux is in quotes because that was ctamblyn's term, not mine.
Just to be clear, I was referring to a flux of charged particles (I was describing electric current at the time). I was not referring to a flux of electric (or magnetic) field, which would be an entirely different thing.

[ben m]

I haven't. An electron features two rotations.


You can't offer "in my hypothesis, e and nu are different because the e has two rotations" as a response to "what are the observed differences between e and nu". The only observed difference is the charge.


Ever wondered why there's a similarity between gravitomagnetism and electromagnetism? Here, look at this. I didn't write it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitomagnetism#Higher-order_effects

"Consider a toroidal mass with two degrees of rotation (both major axis and minor-axis spin, both turning inside out and revolving). This represents a "special case" in which gravitomagnetic effects generate a chiral corkscrew-like gravitational field around the object."


We dropped this point a while back, but let's get back to it. There is nothing corkscrew-like about the electromagnetic field of an electron. Nothing whatsoever.

[The Man]

I know a photon has no electric charge. But look at what pair production is telling you: charge is created from an electromagnetic wave.


As already noted the net charge of the produced pair is zero. So no net charge is “created from an electromagnetic wave” even in pair production. Now you could say that some charge separation resulted due to that pair production and the electromagnetic wave. However charge separation results in (and from) an electrical field and an electromagnetic wave is just a localized variation in an electromagnet field. So an electromagnetic wave producing some charge separation is just saying an electromagnetic wave involves an electrical field variation, simply trivial.

[ctamblyn]

Here I have an electron, a charged particle. It's got charge. And here I have a positron, another charged particle. It's got charge too. Put them together, and voila, the charge is gone. Annihilated. Destroyed. Yes, net charge is always conserved, but so is angular momentum, and you can create it. Just spin a wheel. Out in space with nothing to brace against you need a counter-rotation to make it happen. But there's nothing fundamental about it. Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.
You could help your case by demonstrating that a circulating photon appears to be a charged particle. Start simple - show that the total flux of electric field through a sphere surrounding your system is non-zero.

Everyone else posting here (I would guess) thinks that the answer is zero, due to the fact that the photon is electrically neutral. Convince us otherwise. One simple surface integral...

[Belz...]

Better still, get a German friend to translate it for you. It matches the google translation. There's Einstein saying a curvature of the rays of light can only occur when the speed of light varies with location. But people who have been brought up on the constancy of the speed of light will not accept it.

That's because it's been a hundred years since Einstein said that, and maybe we've learned a thing or two since then, namely that the speed of light is constant (always, in fact. It just takes detours in non-voids)

No. You're supposed to look at the evidence and think for yourself. Evidence like the Shapiro delay and the GPS clock adjustment. GPS uses atomic clocks. They use microwaves. Light. Gravitational time dilation isn't direct evidence of "time going slower". It's direct evidence of light going slower. And as per the evidence of pair production, you're made of the stuff.

The problem is, you haven't provided this evidence, so it's a little difficult to agree with you.

[sol invictus]

Here I have an electron, a charged particle. It's got charge. And here I have a positron, another charged particle. It's got charge too. Put them together, and voila, the charge is gone. Annihilated. Destroyed.

The net charge is unchanged by that process - it happens because positrons have the opposite charge as electrons, so that the net charge is zero both before and after. That means - if you didn't know anything else - that a photon could be composed of an electron plus a positron. It also means that an electron cannot be composed of photons, because photons do not have a net charge, and electrons do.

Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.

I don't need to do better than that. Of course there are tens of other obvious and fundamental reasons why this doesn't work (for example: electrons are spin 1/2 fermions, photons are spin 1 bosons, and it's impossible to make a fermion by any combination of bosons), but this one is more than adequate.

[Reality Check]

I'm not ignoring any of the above. Pair production is where we make an electron and a positron from a photon. We create charge, and mass, magnetic moment, and spin 1/2. Why do you cling to the conviction that it's something mystical that cannot be explained classically? It can.

"We" do not create charge, magnetic moment, and mass and spin 1/2.
These obey physical and conservation laws.

Charge is conserved: The electron has a measured charge. A photon does not.
Mass is conserved: The electron has a measured mass. A photon has no mass.
The electron has a measured magnetic moment. A photon has no magnetic moment.
Spin obeys QM rules: The electron has a measured quantum mechanical spin of 1/2. A photon has a quantum mechanical spin of 1. There is no way that a spin of 1 can be made into a spin of 1/2.
You could be ignorant enough to treat the spin classically, put the photon into a path that includes a twist and think that the average spin is 1/2. You would be wrong:
The opposite spin to +1 is -1. An average would be 0.
Classical spins need a force to change their orientation.
I have no issue with The electromagnetic field has electric and magnetic components. But there is no sense in which relative motion creates a magnetic field. A reference frame isn't something that exists. It's just a formalism for describing motion and measurement. When you move, you measure it differently. That electromagnetic field didn't change just because you moved through it. Do you get this yet?
Are you stating that there is no magnetic field due to a moving charge, i.e. that all of electromagnetism is wrong?
Or that there is always a magnetic field but it magically does nothing in some circumstances?

And what is your position on relativistic mass which is also "created" by relative velocities?

A reference frame is a formalism that has no reality in itself. It has real physicsl effects. Read any textbook on relativity.

[ben m]

I'd like to highlight the fact that Farsight is so far talking as though the only property of charge is that it's a conserved quantity which shows up in e+e- pair production. If I gave you a blank slate and said, "Look, design a system in which aa --> bc and bc-->aa are both valid reactions", you might invent a scheme in which a,b, and c are the same thing in three different configurations. That'd look OK for ab -> ab and ac -> ac as well. You'd have to make up some conservation law to prevent aa->bb and ab -> ac and so on, but you might find this satisfying and call it a success.

But that's not the situation we're in, Farsight. Charge isn't a mysterious conserved quantity we invented to explain the lack of electron-electron pair production. Charge is the quantity which appears as a source in electrostatics, the quantity for which like-repels-like and opposites-attract, etc. Your random guess at "abc are the same thing" can work to uncover a conserved quantity that you have no other handle on---the early bookkeeping of "strangeness" in hadrons worked this way---but charge is not such a property. We know enough about charge to know specifically that it is not made up of photons going in any sort of loop whatsoever.

[sol invictus]

I'd like to highlight the fact that Farsight is so far talking as though the only property of charge is that it's a conserved quantity which shows up in e+e- pair production. If I gave you a blank slate and said, "Look, design a system in which aa --> bc and bc-->aa are both valid reactions", you might invent a scheme in which a,b, and c are the same thing in three different configurations. That'd look OK for ab -> ab and ac -> ac as well. You'd have to make up some conservation law to prevent aa->bb and ab -> ac and so on, but you might find this satisfying and call it a success.

Which he actually hasn't done. According to Farsight's "model", there's nothing wrong with electron+electron --> photons, or just electron-->photon(s) for that matter. After all each electron is just made of photons, so what stops them from decaying to them? Similarly electron+photon --> positron+photon is fine too. Of course none of those processes ever happen.

All of those unphysical possibilities are manifestations of the same basic problem with the "model" - electrons cannot be made of photons, because photons aren't charged.

[Reality Check]

Which he actually hasn't done. According to Farsight's "model", there's nothing wrong with electron+electron --> photons, or just electron-->photon(s) for that matter. After all each electron is just made of photons, so what stops them from decaying to them? Similarly electron+photon --> positron+photon is fine too. Of course none of those processes ever happen.

All of those unphysical possibilities are manifestations of the same basic problem with the "model" - electrons cannot be made of photons, because photons aren't charged.
That does pose a yet another nasty problem for Farsight's idea:
Farsight:

What does your idea predict for the decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
What is the measured decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
What does this say about the conservation of charge?
FYI: Particle physics experiments have observed trillions of interactions. The results are extensively studied. Physicists are especially interested when particles "vanish", i.e. a charged particle is tracked to a point and then is no longer visible. This is a signature of a decay process, e.g. muon decay. Of course what they always see is that there are one or more charged particles resulting from the decay.

[Mashuna]

Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.

In a bible verse competition, maybe.

[Farsight]

...We understand spin down to about the most profound level we understand anything in the world.No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic". That's a non-explanation. And you believe it with such conviction you dismiss two-dimensional real rotation. Think about that glass clock. From the front you say the hands are moving clockwise. From the back you say they're moving anticlockwise. Now I spin the clock like a coin. Which way are the hands going? You can't say any more. But you can tell the difference if the rotations are reversed. That's why a positron is a "time reversed" electron. It isn't going back in time. The rotations are backwards.

[Kwalish Kid]

Can you demonstrate any of this with the proper mathematics?

[Farsight]

Just show us how the mathematics in the Minkowski paper that you cited match up with your claims about the appearance of the electromagnetic field. This is something that should be straightforward.No it isn't. He talks about motive force vectors and four dimensions, but he didn't understand that t is an emergent property of motion.

Why is it that you refuse to answer any of my questions? Do they cut so deep that you can't face yourself when you consider them?No, it's because your questions aren't genuine, because you're only interested in stifling this discussion. I've already said I can't explain what lies beneath the mathematics with more mathematics.

Regardless, this does nothing to answer any questions about the physics, which seems to be exactly why you were banned from the baut forums.I was banned from baut because a moderator there was a guy like you.

[ben m]

No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic". That's a non-explanation.


What makes it a non-explanation? Only your opinion that all angular momenta need to be the same as the L = v x r angular momenta in classical physics. Sorry, Farsight, your faith in classical physics is a blind faith and is misplaced.

We have a large amount of evidence that classical physics is wrong (quantum mechanics generally) and furthermore a lot of evidence that the electron spin is really truly intrinsic. Saying it's intrinsic is NOT brushing it under the rug---there's a lot of quantum mechanics telling us that it's intrinsic.

[Farsight]

On this silliness about the EM field:

"That electromagnetic field didn't change just because you moved through it."

Let's see about that. Lorentz transformations include rotations and boosts (changes in velocity). Mathematically, those are very very similar. When acting on the EM field-strength tensor, rotations change the components of the electric and magnetic fields as if they were ordinary vectors but do not mix the electric and magnetic components, while boosts mix the electric and magnetic fields. So the situation you're getting so worked up about is very analogous to the effect of a rotation on a vector, and so let's consider that instead (since it's easier to visualize).OK.

So here, I'll translate your statement into one about vectors: "The direction that spaceship is moving didn't change just because you turned around." Is that true?Yes.

Let's say originally the spaceship (I'm floating in outer space, with only this single ship in view and no other points of reference) was moving from my left to my right. After I turn around it's moving from my right to my left. So it did change direction relative to me (or more accurately relative to a vector that's fixed to my body, for example the one pointing in the direction I can see). Obviously the ship didn't change direction with respect to something else just because I turned around (unless that thing also rotated), but it did change direction relative to me. Since "relative to me" is just as good as any other frame, I'm perfectly justified in saying that it did change direction just because I turned around.Your motion does not affect the spaceship. Just as when you increase your speed a star doesn't flatten. The way you see it changes, not the thing itself.

The analogy to the EM field under boosts is much exact, so if you agree with the above, you agree that the EM field did change "just because" you moved through it. If you don't, it's just a matter of semantics - the math is totally unambiguous (for those that understand it, at least).It's not just a matter of semantics. It's a matter of getting to grips with reality. The EM field is the EM field. When you move through it, it doesn't change. The way you see it changes. That's all.

[ben m]

I've already said I can't explain what lies beneath the mathematics with more mathematics.

So far, Farsight, you haven't been able to explain anything using any technique whatsoever. All we have learned from you is that you want electrons to be made of photons.

Without math, how are you planning to tell whether "what lies beneath the math" is right or wrong?

[Farsight]

You can't offer "in my hypothesis, e and nu are different because the e has two rotations" as a response to "what are the observed differences between e and nu".Accepted.

The only observed difference is the charge.Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron. It isn't merely a lightweight electron without charge.


We dropped this point a while back, but let's get back to it. There is nothing corkscrew-like about the electromagnetic field of an electron. Nothing whatsoever.No? Then explain why Minkowski referred to a wrench analogy, and Maxwell referred to a screw mechanism. One field exerts a radial force, and a rotational force when you move through it. I've provided the scientific evidence with the right hand rule, downward motion past a vertical stack of electrons, and that reamer in your fist. Where's yours?

[Tubbythin]

So explain how it works.
Define "explain". Because we have some astonishingly precise theories which explain exactly how things like pair production works. But apparently that isn't good enough. Apparently the only thing good enough is vague ramblings illustrated with pictures and no quantitative support whatsoever.


Shrug. Pair production happens.
I know. But it is not the dominant process at threshold energies. That was all I said. And yet you just keep on posting the same pretty picture for no reason at all.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Pairproduction.png
Yes. That one.


You don't understand that either. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation#History and note "Despite these successes, Dirac's theory is flawed by its neglect of the possibility of creating and destroying particles, one of the basic consequences of relativity."
I never said it explained everything.


LOL. A carefully crafted argument.
An accurate one.

[Tubbythin]

Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron. It isn't merely a lightweight electron without charge.


Err what? Electrons move to you know.

[Tubbythin]

Look at my second post and the right hand rule: http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=5700835&postcount=2
Look at my other posts.
What about it?


There's evidence galore, but you refuse to admit it as evidence because you've got Morton's Demon sitting on your shoulder.
Nope. Physics is a quantitative science. If its not quantitative it aint physics. You've completely failed to quantify anything. You've completely failed to do physics.


Read this:

http://www.answersincreation.org/mortond.htm

Make sure you read it. Then think about it. The difference between you and me Tubby, is that three years back I realised that there were things that I thought I understood, but I didn't.
That happens virtually every day with me.


And then I really understood the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Those YECs aren't so special. Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds,
So.


and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry.
A case can be made for investigating these things. Quite how strong the case is another question.


Even though they don't understand the electron.
We have a theory describing the electron that just happens to be one of the greatest, more precisely tested theories of physics in human history. And you want to reject it because you don't understand it and word rather explain things in terms of nice flowery words.

[Tubbythin]

Compton scattering doesn't destroy photons, it robs them of energy. An inverse Compton gives it back. Electron properties tell us about the structure of the electron. Mass, charge, spin, magnetic dipole moment, zitterbewegung. There's something moving in there, and it's going round. How anybody can dismiss pair production and accept the mysticism that parcels all this up as "instrinsic" and "elementary" and still consider themselves a rational scientist beats me.


Farsight, have you ever looked up the experimental limit on the maximum size of the electron? Have you ever then tried to calculate the speed at which the electron must be spinning in order for it to have in the classical sense, the angular momentum we call spin?

[ben m]

Your motion does not affect the spaceship. Just as when you increase your speed a star doesn't flatten. The way you see it changes, not the thing itself.


You're making the (very common) assumption that the star's rest frame is somehow the "real" one---containing the star's real shape---and everyone else is just "seeing it differently". No, in special relativity the quantity you want to call the star's "shape" is simply not an invariant. It's an observer dependent quantity.

If you want to figure out what the actual invariant quantity is---and there is one---and therefore make true statements instead of false ones, you'll need to do it more carefully. The ability to do this correctly, and avoid doing it incorrectly, is highly correlated with the ability to DO THE MATH.

[Tubbythin]

I can't see that

You said:
Until then, look at the evidence of electron/positron pair production and annihilation. You typically achieve the former by splitting a +1022keV photon over a nucleus.

You were wrong. That is it.

[ben m]

Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron.

What?

[sol invictus]

No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic".

No, I didn't. I explained it in terms of representations of the Poincare group. You have no idea what that means. That's your problem, not mine.


Your motion does not affect the spaceship.

Sure it does. When I rotate, there's a "fictitious force" that grabs the ship and swings it violently around. That's a completely consistent description, one that's exactly equivalent to any other valid description (and by the way, it's the one we tend to use on earth - ever heard of Coriolis force?).


Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron.

?????

It isn't merely a lightweight electron without charge.

That's exactly what it is.

[Tubbythin]

Think it through. Momentum is just a distance-based measure of energy/momentum, whilst energy is a time-based measure.

Erm, err..., pardon?

[RussDill]

Before I left on vacation, you claimed that you could provide the fine structure constant, 1/137.035999679(94). I've returned to (surprise) discover that you have done no such thing. Your excuse is that it is a running constant, which has certainly not stopped particle physicists from determining it experimentally at a given energy level. And I quote "I can tell you why the fine structure constant takes the value it does". You have done no such thing.

Second, you claimed "I'll show an experiment that has a behaviour that is not properly predicted by current models". You have shown no such experiment, all you have done is claimed that models must show "how" things work to your satisfaction. There are things within the standard model that do not give a why or a how, this doesn't make the standard model invalid, it just means that a) there are some things that cannot be answered or b) that there is a better theory around somewhere. You've even decided that "fundamental" can mean anything you want, the standard model carefully defines the meaning of "fundamental" within the framework of the standard model. It makes no sense to claim it means something else and the show contradictions within the standard model by using that different meaning.

Not only that, you haven't even provided any examples of your theory in practice. Not one instance where we can use your theory to predict the outcome of any experiment.

I also find your quote

Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry.

Highly ironic. You'll note that theoretical physicists in general do not "believe" in the theory they are developing, nor do they claim that current theories are junk (unless they have really good evidence). Even Brian Greene, who makes a whole lot of money selling books that describe the current state of string theory, is sure to state that the theory is incomplete and that "But let me state categorically, if the theory is wrong, I'd like to know it today so I wouldn't waste my time on it any longer." and also "We will have no certainty that it's right until the experiments show that it's right."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/greene.html

[Dancing David]

No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic". That's a non-explanation. And you believe it with such conviction you dismiss two-dimensional real rotation. Think about that glass clock. From the front you say the hands are moving clockwise. From the back you say they're moving anticlockwise. Now I spin the clock like a coin. Which way are the hands going? You can't say any more. But you can tell the difference if the rotations are reversed. That's why a positron is a "time reversed" electron. It isn't going back in time. The rotations are backwards.

Wow, even I know that you are wrong about the QM property of spin. I suppose you can tell Pauli about that as well. It is an instrinsic property observed in certain particles.

And while you can view a positron as a time reversed electron, there are reasons that it doesn't really act that way.

[Farsight]

As already noted the net charge of the produced pair is zero. So no net charge is “created from an electromagnetic wave” even in pair production.True. No net charge is created, just as no net angular momentum is created when I'm in space and I rotate a satellite and suffer a counter-rotation.

Now you could say that some charge separation resulted due to that pair production and the electromagnetic wave.Continuing with the angular momentum analogy, I wouldn't say some "rotation separation" occurred when I rotated the satellite...

However charge separation results in (and from) an electrical field and an electromagnetic wave is just a localized variation in an electromagnet field....but OK, I'll go with the flow.

So an electromagnetic wave producing some charge separation is just saying an electromagnetic wave involves an electrical field variation, simply trivial.OK, it's trivial. But there's a horrible issue lurking here, and it's a monster: which is more fundamental? The "current" that causes the field variation, or the "charge" that causes the field? ...this charge being a property of a particle which exhibits magnetic dipole moment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment) where g=2.0023:

"..The factor of two difference implies that the electron appears to be twice as effective in producing a magnetic moment as the corresponding classical charged body...

[Farsight]

You could help your case by demonstrating that a circulating photon appears to be a charged particle. Start simple - show that the total flux of electric field through a sphere surrounding your system is non-zero.

Everyone else posting here (I would guess) thinks that the answer is zero, due to the fact that the photon is electrically neutral. Convince us otherwise. One simple surface integral...It isn't simple, ct. I've described the electromagnetic field as a twist/turn field. I'm saying the electromagnetic field is only there because the 511keV photon is twisting and turning because it's a 3.86 x 10-13m displacement travelling entirely through itself. Photons usually travel in straight lines. When they don't we say space is curved. And there's no discontinuity around this curvature. If space takes the form of a closed loop, the surrounding space must have been dragged around it. Then the force experienced by one of these vorton "rotors" is a path change caused by the curvature caused by another vorton. The moebius strip was a mystery for 75 years, and that's just bit of paper. I need a whole new language for this. Maybe David Hestenes has got something, see http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/, but it isn't something I can pull out of the hat.

[Reality Check]

OK, it's trivial. But there's a horrible issue lurking here, and it's a monster: which is more fundamental? The "current" that causes the field variation, or the "charge" that causes the field? ...this charge being a property of a particle which exhibits magnetic dipole moment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment) where g=2.0023:

"..The factor of two difference implies that the electron appears to be twice as effective in producing a magnetic moment as the corresponding classical charged body...
There is no horrible issue and it is trivial. "Charge" is always "more fundemental" than "current". The charge of an object is a property of the object.

ETA:
I think that The Man is slightly wrong. The electromagnetic wave (incoming photon) does not produce any charge separation (outgoing electron and positron). It is the imparting of momentum to the nearby nucleus that allows the photon to become a separate electron and positron and thus separate charges. Without a nucleus all you have is a virtual electron and positron pair.

The displacement current (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_current) of an electromagnetic wave has nothing to do with charges (it is a change in the flux density of the electric field).
In electromagnetism, displacement current is a quantity that is defined in terms of the rate of change of electric displacement field. Displacement current has the units of electric current density, and it has an associated magnetic field just as actual currents do. However it is not an electric current of moving charges, but a time-varying electric field. In materials, there is also a contribution from the slight motion of charges bound in atoms, dielectric polarization.
But then you go onto the properties of an electron so you must know this already.

The reason that an "electron appears to be twice as effective in producing a magnetic moment as the corresponding classical charged body" is simply that it is not a classical charged body. It is a quantum mechanical charged body.

[Farsight]

That's because it's been a hundred years since Einstein said that, and maybe we've learned a thing or two since then, namely that the speed of light is constant (always, in fact. It just takes detours in non-voids)Look to the evidence. Two astronauts A and B carry identical parallel-mirror light clocks. Astronaut A stays up in space with you whilst astronaut B goes down into a gravity well, holding his clock flat to avoid radial length contraction. They come back and you look at the counters that tells you how many times the light has bounced back and forth. The readings differ. That tells you that the light went slower where astronaut B was. Note that clocks don't clock up time. They clock up motion through space. An atomic clock employs microwaves:

Since 1967, the second has been defined to be the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.[1]

You sit there counting microwave peaks go by. When you get to 9,192,631,770 you tick off a second. The second is defined by the motion of light. If seconds are bigger, it's because light goes slower. Einstein was right. And you haven't learned a thing or two since then.

The problem is, you haven't provided this evidence, so it's a little difficult to agree with you.See above. It's hidden in plain view. You can hold up your hands with a gap between them to show me space. You can waggle your hands to show me motion through that space. You can show me a clock reading that is a cumulative counter of motion. But you can't show me time. There is no evidence that "time goes slower". But there is ample evidence that light goes slower.

[Farsight]

The net charge is unchanged by that process - it happens because positrons have the opposite charge as electrons, so that the net charge is zero both before and after. That means - if you didn't know anything else - that a photon could be composed of an electron plus a positron.No it doesn't, because they have mass, and they can't travel at c. And you can conduct low-energy proton/annihilation to produce neutral pions that decay to photons in a nanosecond. So photons aren't made of electrons and positrons, or protons and antiprotons or pions.

It also means that an electron cannot be composed of photons, because photons do not have a net charge, and electrons do.Pair production and annihilation happens. An electron and a positron turn into two 511keV gamma photons. Do I have to post up the picture again? What do you think the electron is composed of? Magic?

I don't need to do better than that. Of course there are tens of other obvious and fundamental reasons why this doesn't work (for example: electrons are spin 1/2 fermions, photons are spin 1 bosons, and it's impossible to make a fermion by any combination of bosons), but this one is more than adequate.You make two fermions from one boson. It's called pair production. Now pull yourself together, stop dismissing the evidence, and stop being in denial.

[ben m]

It isn't simple, ct. I've described the electromagnetic field as a twist/turn field. I'm saying the electromagnetic field is only there because the 511keV photon is twisting and turning because it's a 3.86 x 10-13m displacement travelling entirely through itself.

A) I await your explanation of why "a twisting turning 511 keV photon" should create (a) the divergence term in Gauss's Law, (b) the current term in Ampere's Law, (c) NOT the magnetic monopole term, NOT the monopole current term, NOT nothing-whatsoever, NOT a bunch of dipole or high-order terms, etc. etc. etc. Remember, real electrons (and muons, and protons, and quarks, and W-bosons, but NOT photons or neutrinos or Z-bosons or neutrons) behave this way.

B) All available data is consistent with an electron which is pointlike at scales down to 10^-20 m.

[Reality Check]

The second is defined by the motion of light.

That is wrong. The second is defined by counting 9,192,631,770 periods of the transition. The motion of light has nothing to do with it.


There is no evidence that "time goes slower". But there is ample evidence that light goes slower.
Wrong.
There is plenty of evidence that time dilation exists.
Experimental Basis of Special Relativity - Test of Time Dilation (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#Tests_of_time_dilation).
Note that many of these tests were done before 1967, e.g.

Rossi and Hoag, Physical Review 57, pg 461 (1940).
Rossi and Hall, Physical Review 59, pg 223 (1941).
Rasetti, Physical Review 60, pg 198 (1941).

[ben m]

Pair production and annihilation happens. An electron and a positron turn into two 511keV gamma photons. Do I have to post up the picture again? What do you think the electron is composed of? Magic?

What law of Nature tells you that electrons have to be composed of something else? Is there some lost verse in the Book of Genesis which says " ... and the LORD says there shall be only one truly elementary particle which makes up all the others" ? You seem mighty convinced that Nature has to work that way.

[ctamblyn]

It isn't simple, ct. I've described the electromagnetic field as a twist/turn field. I'm saying the electromagnetic field is only there because the 511keV photon is twisting and turning because it's a 3.86 x 10-13m displacement travelling entirely through itself. Photons usually travel in straight lines. When they don't we say space is curved. And there's no discontinuity around this curvature. If space takes the form of a closed loop, the surrounding space must have been dragged around it. Then the force experienced by one of these vorton "rotors" is a path change caused by the curvature caused by another vorton. The moebius strip was a mystery for 75 years, and that's just bit of paper. I need a whole new language for this. Maybe David Hestenes has got something, see http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/, but it isn't something I can pull out of the hat.
OK. I'm not sure what there is to say at this stage, to be honest. As I suggested earlier in the thread, without solid quantitative predictions, it would require something of a leap of faith for someone to accept this model. The theory needs to be cast as a coherent, mathematical model, eventually capable of making quantitative predictions about observables. Until that stage is reached, the reaction from the physics community is naturally going to be somewhat unenthusiastic.
Anyway, good luck with that if you decide to pursue it.

[Farsight]

"We" do not create charge, magnetic moment, and mass and spin 1/2. These obey physical and conservation laws.

1. Charge is conserved: The electron has a measured charge. A photon does not.Net charge is conserved. When you spin that satellite and suffer counter rotation, you have created two opposite rotations. Where once there was no rotation, there now is rotation. In similar vein where once there was no charge, now there is charge. Two opposite charges yes, but charge nevertheless. And you create it via pair production.

2. Mass is conserved: The electron has a measured mass. A photon has no mass.Wrong again. Mass is created in pair production. It is destroyed in annihilation. Energy is conserved, momentum is conserved, but not mass.

3. The electron has a measured magnetic moment. A photon has no magnetic moment.And if that photon is travelling in a circular path?

4. Spin obeys QM rules: The electron has a measured quantum mechanical spin of 1/2. A photon has a quantum mechanical spin of 1. There is no way that a spin of 1 can be made into a spin of 1/2.This is getting embarassing. Pair production does it. Try dividing 1 by 2.

5. You could be ignorant enough to treat the spin classically, put the photon into a path that includes a twist and think that the average spin is 1/2. You would be wrong:
The opposite spin to +1 is -1. An average would be 0.
Classical spins need a force to change their orientation.Look at the picture below, follow the black round line. It needs two rotations to return to the original position and orientation. There it is. Spin 1/2.

http://members.optushome.com.au/walshjj/toroid2.jpg

Are you stating that there is no magnetic field due to a moving charge, i.e. that all of electromagnetism is wrong?No. I'm saying when you move with respect to a charge, you see the magnetic aspect of the electromagnetic field.

Or that there is always a magnetic field but it magically does nothing in some circumstances?There is always an electromagnetic field. That's what's there. What you think of as a magnetic field is merely how you see this field when in motion with respect to it.

And what is your position on relativistic mass which is also "created" by relative velocities?It's a measure of total energy, made by you, and your measurement depends on your relative motion. If you move very fast, and swoop past the earth, it hasn't changed one jot. It hasn't gained any relativistic mass. Your motion changed, and that alters the way you see things.

A reference frame is a formalism that has no reality in itself. It has real physicsl effects. Read any textbook on relativity.Your motion affects your measurements. It doesn't change the things you move past, or the fields you move through, just your measurements of them. A reference frame is mathematical artifice associated with motion and measurement. Relativity is all about motion.

[ctamblyn]

Erm, regarding the nice picture of a torus - it might interest you to know that orbital angular momentum can never give you a spin of 1/2. The eigenvalues of each component of orbital angular momentum are always integers (in units where hbar = 1). Only intrinsic angular momentum can have half-integer eigenvalues.

[Farsight]

I'd like to highlight the fact that Farsight is so far talking as though the only property of charge is that it's a conserved quantity which shows up in e+e- pair production. If I gave you a blank slate and said, "Look, design a system in which aa --> bc and bc-->aa are both valid reactions", you might invent a scheme in which a,b, and c are the same thing in three different configurations. That'd look OK for ab -> ab and ac -> ac as well. You'd have to make up some conservation law to prevent aa->bb and ab -> ac and so on, but you might find this satisfying and call it a success.Sounds reasonable.

But that's not the situation we're in, Farsight. Charge isn't a mysterious conserved quantity we invented to explain the lack of electron-electron pair production. Charge is the quantity which appears as a source in electrostatics, the quantity for which like-repels-like and opposites-attract, etc. Your random guess at "abc are the same thing"...Whoa, this isn't my random guess. This appeared in peer-reviewed papers by ex-CERN physicists.

can work to uncover a conserved quantity that you have no other handle on---the early bookkeeping of "strangeness" in hadrons worked this way---but charge is not such a property. We know enough about charge to know specifically that it is not made up of photons going in any sort of loop whatsoever.No, you don't. I've shown you the pedigree and given my scientific evidence along with a well-argued case that remains logically consistent. So don't think you're going to get away with bald assertions and dismissal. Show me your scientific evidence and your counter-argument.

Bedtime.

[Reality Check]

You are right. I shoud have been addressing your idea that an electron is a photon. That idea is obviously wrong. The electron would have to have

The same mass as the photon (zero).
The same charge as the photon (none).
The same spin as the photon (1).
The same magneic moment as the photon (zero).
Arbitrarily saying that that photon goes along a path that restricts it magically inside an equally arbitary and physically impossible (see below) radius does not change the mass, charge, spin or magnetic moment of the photon.

A mass of zero remains as zero.
A photon with an energy of 510.9810 KeV has an equivalent mass as an electron. But then you have the problem of explaining why a 510.9811 KeV photon cannot form an electron.
My guess is that you will assert that your magical path can only be travelled by photons at 510.9810 KeV because you want them to.
A charge of zero remains as zero and thus the magnetic moment remains as zero.
The spin remains as 1. This is an intrinsic quantum mechnaical property of a photon. If a photon has a spin of 1/2 then it is not a photon. It is a massless neutrino. And if neutrinos turn out to have mass then I think that it is a totally new particle.
I'm saying the electromagnetic field is only there because the 511keV photon is twisting and turning because it's a 3.86 x 10-13m displacement travelling entirely through itself. Photons usually travel in straight lines.
The upper limit to the radius of an electron is 10^-20 meters :jaw-dropp !


And if that photon is travelling in a circular path?

Then it is in a black hole.


This is getting embarassing. Pair production does it. Try dividing 1 by 2.



That is really embarassing for you. In reality:

Spin of a photon = 1.
Spin of an electron = 1/2. Spin of a positron = 1/2.
1 = 1/2 + 1/2
Thus the existing theory of pair production describes reality. Your idea cannot.

[Reality Check]

Whoa, this isn't my random guess. This appeared in peer-reviewed papers by ex-CERN physicists.
Citations please.

[ben m]

No, you don't. I've shown you the pedigree and given my scientific evidence along with a well-argued case that remains logically consistent. So don't think you're going to get away with bald assertions and dismissal. Show me your scientific evidence and your counter-argument.


I disagree that you've shown me a pedigree for your ideas. Linking to a 100-year-old paper with a vortex in it does not mean that your claim that the electron is a self-trapped photon has a "pedigree".

I disagree that you've shown evidence. You've stated what properties you hope that your model has, or will have in the future. You've stated a few vague things that you don't like about the Standard Model, but only in that it fails to live up to a criterion you seem to have invented yourself.

Furthermore, I disagree that your case is logically consistent---and furthermore that self-evaluating one's "logical consistency" is a reliable way of preventing one from confusing oneself. Aristotle, Ptolemy, Freud, Mesmer, and (say) Mary Baker Eddy sure thought they were being logically consistent back in the day, but that didn't stop them from getting everything horrendously wrong.

[Kwalish Kid]

No it isn't. He talks about motive force vectors and four dimensions, but he didn't understand that t is an emergent property of motion.
Ok, so earlier you wrote, "Moving through an electric field doesn’t cause a magnetic field to be generated, because as Minkowski said, it’s the electromagnetic field, and it exerts force in two ways." You used this as part of a justification for your particular diagram of the electromagnetic field.

Now you claim that nothing that Minkowski wrote doesn't match up with your diagram.

Why should we not simply take your earlier claims as a lie?
No, it's because your questions aren't genuine, because you're only interested in stifling this discussion. I've already said I can't explain what lies beneath the mathematics with more mathematics.
But can you demonstrate that your diagram actually matches electromagnetic behaviour as measured in experiments?
No? Then explain why Minkowski referred to a wrench analogy, and Maxwell referred to a screw mechanism. One field exerts a radial force, and a rotational force when you move through it.
The obvious answer is that the composition of forces in relativity is analogous to the composition of forces in determining wrenches. Wrenches do not need to introduce rotation.

Regardless, you have since admitted that Minkowski's work does not support your claims. Why should we not consider your answer to ben m another lie?
I've provided the scientific evidence with the right hand rule, downward motion past a vertical stack of electrons, and that reamer in your fist. Where's yours?
You have not provided any scientific evidence. Where is there any measurements of electromagnetic phenomena that follow your spiral pictures?

[Kwalish Kid]

It isn't simple, ct. I've described the electromagnetic field as a twist/turn field. I'm saying the electromagnetic field is only there because the 511keV photon is twisting and turning because it's a 3.86 x 10-13m displacement travelling entirely through itself. Photons usually travel in straight lines. When they don't we say space is curved. And there's no discontinuity around this curvature. If space takes the form of a closed loop, the surrounding space must have been dragged around it. Then the force experienced by one of these vorton "rotors" is a path change caused by the curvature caused by another vorton. The moebius strip was a mystery for 75 years, and that's just bit of paper. I need a whole new language for this. Maybe David Hestenes has got something, see http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/, but it isn't something I can pull out of the hat.
If you don't have a single description of a photon that shows the basic properties of an electron, how can you possibly believe that a photon can have the basic properties of an electron?

[Kwalish Kid]

Whoa, this isn't my random guess. This appeared in peer-reviewed papers by ex-CERN physicists.
Is this another lie, or can you provide the references? In the past, you have only provided links to crank papers from non-peer reviewed sources. For example, you called this paper, http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0204044 , a paper by an ex-CERN physicist, but it is clearly not peer reviewed.

[Christian Klippel]

I'm wondering what his current crackpot index (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html) is.

Greetings,

Chris

[Tubbythin]

Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron. It isn't merely a lightweight electron without charge.


I'm still very keen for you to elaborate here.

[The Man]

True. No net charge is created, just as no net angular momentum is created when I'm in space and I rotate a satellite and suffer a counter-rotation.

Continuing with the angular momentum analogy, I wouldn't say some "rotation separation" occurred when I rotated the satellite...

Does "rotation separation" result in some detectable “angular momentum” field? If not then your "rotation separation" “angular momentum analogy” is not analogues to charge separation and simply fails in that specific regard being referenced.



...but OK, I'll go with the flow.

OK, it's trivial. But there's a horrible issue lurking here, and it's a monster: which is more fundamental? The "current" that causes the field variation, or the "charge" that causes the field? ...this charge being a property of a particle which exhibits magnetic dipole moment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment) where g=2.0023:

"..The factor of two difference implies that the electron appears to be twice as effective in producing a magnetic moment as the corresponding classical charged body...


As already noted an electron is not a “classical charged body” as demonstrated by that "factor of two difference".

[The Man]

ETA:
I think that The Man is slightly wrong. The electromagnetic wave (incoming photon) does not produce any charge separation (outgoing electron and positron). It is the imparting of momentum to the nearby nucleus that allows the photon to become a separate electron and positron and thus separate charges. Without a nucleus all you have is a virtual electron and positron pair.



A likely possibility that I’m always, more than slightly, willing to consider and agree with. However in virtual pair production the charge separation can not be maintained over any detectable distance (or period of time) and the pair must annihilate with each other or other virtual pairs leaving only the photon (no charge separation) detectable. So as you state the imparting of momentum to the nucleus (by the incoming photon) permits that charge separation to be maintained and thus the charged particles to be detected. Sorry if I didn’t make that distinction evident in my pervious post.

[ben m]

Is this another lie, or can you provide the references? In the past, you have only provided links to crank papers from non-peer reviewed sources. For example, you called this paper, http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0204044 , a paper by an ex-CERN physicist, but it is clearly not peer reviewed.

How do you verify that he's an ex-CERN physicist? The three papers give no affiliation and use a Hotmail address.

(I would note that his papers have the classic crackpot profile. Three uploads, none published (i.e. peer-reviewed). All apparently written in Microsoft Word. One of these papers has one citation, and that's from another crackpot-profile preprint from an authentic "ground state" author ("only one upload, no citations ever")

[The Man]

It isn't simple, ct. I've described the electromagnetic field as a twist/turn field. I'm saying the electromagnetic field is only there because the 511keV photon is twisting and turning because it's a 3.86 x 10-13m displacement travelling entirely through itself. Photons usually travel in straight lines.

Please see the Path integral formulation or Sum over histories.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_integral_formulation


You will have to show how your “twisting and turning” path becomes the dominate (more probable or constructively reinforced) path as opposed to being canceled by an adjacent and similarly “twisting and turning” path that would be out of phase.

ETA:
http://www.quantumfieldtheory.info/Path_Integrals_in_Quantum_Theories.htm

[Farsight]

That does pose a yet another nasty problem for Farsight's idea:
Farsight:

What does your idea predict for the decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
What is the measured decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
What does this say about the conservation of charge?
FYI: Particle physics experiments have observed trillions of interactions. The results are extensively studied. Physicists are especially interested when particles "vanish", i.e. a charged particle is tracked to a point and then is no longer visible. This is a signature of a decay process, e.g. muon decay. Of course what they always see is that there are one or more charged particles resulting from the decay.Huh? It predicts a decay rate of zero. Like the measured decay rate. And that says charge is conserved. I suppose the next nasty problem will be that "my model" doesn't predict the price of eggs.

[Farsight]

In a bible verse competition, maybe.No, in a physics competition.

Can you demonstrate any of this with the proper mathematics?No. Nobody can. You demonstrate it with scientific evidence. Like the right-hand rule, pair production. At which point some deny the scientific evidence and take refuge in "the proper mathematics".

What makes it a non-explanation?Intrinsic explains nothing. It totally fails to address pair production and magnetic dipole moment. How can any rational person be satisfied with intrinsic ? It is exactly equivalent to surpasseth all human understanding.

Only your opinion that all angular momenta need to be the same as the L = v x r angular momenta in classical physics. Sorry, Farsight, your faith in classical physics is a blind faith and is misplaced.I'm really not the one exhibiting blind faith here.

We have a large amount of evidence that classical physics is wrong (quantum mechanics generally)..That's the physics of billiard-ball point particles. There's another classical physics of waves that isn't.

..and furthermore a lot of evidence that the electron spin is really truly intrinsic. Saying it's intrinsic is NOT brushing it under the rug---there's a lot of quantum mechanics telling us that it's intrinsic.Absolutely wrong. You're dismissing the evidence that challenges your faith in intrinsic spin. If you weren't, I'd be enjoying a sincere physics discussion instead of being shouted down and bored to death with statements like this:

So far, Farsight, you haven't been able to explain anything using any technique whatsoever.I explained the electromagnetic field. Once you see the twist and turn, everything else is easy. That's if you sit down and think about it instead of treating your textbook like a bible and behaving like a mumin.

Define "explain"...Sigh.

Err what? Electrons move too you know.You can capture an electron, and have it sitting there in front of you. You can't do that with a photon. And you can't do that with a neutrino.

We have a theory describing the electron that just happens to be one of the greatest, more precisely tested theories of physics in human history. And you want to reject it because you don't understand it and would rather explain things in terms of nice flowery words.I'm not rejecting QED, I'm giving you the underlying meaning that's always been missing. That's what you're rejecting, along with the evidence of pair production, in favour of mysticism. What would you rather do, understand the twist/turn dualism of the electromagnetic field wherein action in space causes motion, or believe in parallel universes and time travel and things not existing until you look at them?

Groan. Don't you get it get Tubby? I'm the skeptic. You're the sucker.

[Farsight]

Farsight, have you ever looked up the experimental limit on the maximum size of the electron?Yes, the wrong inference was drawn. It's like looking for a cannonball in the middle of a whirlpool, and when you probe down to a 10cm resolution and still can't find it, proclaiming that the cannonball must be smaller than that.

Have you ever then tried to calculate the speed at which the electron must be spinning in order for it to have in the classical sense, the angular momentum we call spin?Tell Lorentz from me: it isn't a cannonball.

Gotta go. Come on guys, raise your game.

[Kwalish Kid]

No. Nobody can. You demonstrate it with scientific evidence. Like the right-hand rule, pair production. At which point some deny the scientific evidence and take refuge in "the proper mathematics".
But if we look at any real physics paper or book, the evidence that the authors present is all about making measurements (using mathematics). You have never tried to provide any physics evidence. So I ask again, why do even you believe in your theory if you have nothing like evidence given your own standards?

Why do you say that you understand these principles that you keep mentioning when it is clear that you cannot use them to build any device or to perform any experiment?

[The Man]

I explained the electromagnetic field. Once you see the twist and turn, everything else is easy. That's if you sit down and think about it instead of treating your textbook like a bible and behaving like a mumin.


No you haven’t, and you have specifically stated that how you would like to explain “the electromagnetic field” (your “twist and turn” photon geometry) is just too hard for you to actually work out. So you are in fact claiming that you specifically can not explain the electromagnetic field with your “twist and turn” photon geometry because it is simply too hard for you to do so, but simply want people to accept it anyway. In spite of the fact that you have failed to show anything constricting a photon to your “twist and turn” path or even how such a photon path might result in the charge or spin of an electron. So apparently nothing has become any easier for you even though you claim to “see the twist and turn” and “everything else is easy”. Sit down with a textbook sometime and think about how “the proper mathematics” is a required part of the demonstrative scientific evidence. Instead of just thinking that you imagining your “twist and turn” shows or explains anything or has put you in a position where “everything else is easy” when even by your own assertions it clearly has not.

[ctamblyn]

Huh? It predicts a decay rate of zero. Like the measured decay rate. And that says charge is conserved. I suppose the next nasty problem will be that "my model" doesn't predict the price of eggs.
Why is the decay rate zero? Your model has a photon in a bound state, so there is an amplitude per unit time that it will tunnel out of the state and become a free particle. No?
P.S. I'd still like to see how Compton scattering fits into this model. At the small scale, your model needs a photon (the incoming one) to scatter off another photon (the "self- trapped" one). It seems to me that your model is going to have serious difficulties describing the observed characteristics of Compton scattering.
P.P.S. I've yet to see an explanation of how a photon interacts with itself to become "self-trapped" in the first place, and why only one wavelength of photon is capable of doing this (the one that happens to give the correct electron rest-energy).

[Kwalish Kid]

Here's the scary thing: this is something this guy has been working on for at least four years, yet he hasn't tried to learn any actual physics.
I've posted the above on some other forums and had a mixed response, ranging from "wow" to "crackpot", but nobody can bust it. Nobody can explain why it's wrong. If anybody can, I'll be disappointed, but grateful.
That was written (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1195473&postcount=2) in November of 2006.

[Pixie of key]

I invalidate the theory of relativity.

According to the theory of relativity the time pauses when it reaches the speed of light.

The time bases on entropy in other words that the energy alters its density and the substance alters with time.

How could the time pause when a spaceship meets photons that come towards with a speed of light?

No way!

On the contrary, the entropy accelerates the more the spaceship meets photons coming towards.

The sun light makes the paint to peel off in other words it alters to a less dense substance.

How about when the ship meets photons while itself moves with a speed of light?


The time of the substance / the energy on the surface of a ship that moves with the speed of light has not been paused and that’s a fact!

It is absolutely ridiculous to claim that the time pauses when moving with the speed of light!

The faster the photon moves in realation to that object that it hits, the bigger the kinetc energy is.

If we think that the time of the ship slows down, then the photons comimg towards would hit the ship even with faster speed.
In relation to the time of the ship and therefore the computational kinetic energy of the photons would be even stronger ect.

This makes an obvious contradiction.

The photons coming from the sun make the paint to peel off in other words to alter faster into a less dense? Apparently this is a proven fact? I´m sure that the sunny side of my house peels off faster!

If my house would move towards the sun with the speed of light, the time of our houses substance / energy would not have definitely paused and I am also very sure of that!

According to the theory of www.onesimpleprinciple.com the house would have altered into a light (=photons) and during that transform the time of the house would have begin to advance faster and faster.

.

[Tubbythin]

Sigh.
You refusal to define what you mean as "explain" so that I can answer the question you asked is noted.


You can capture an electron, and have it sitting there in front of you. You can't do that with a photon. And you can't do that with a neutrino.
The neutrino is stationary in its reference frame. This should be fairly obvious.


I'm not rejecting QED,
Yes you are. You might not know that you're rejecting it because you clearly know almost nothing about physics. But rest assured, there is absolutely no room in QED for electrons and protons to be made of photons.


I'm giving you the underlying meaning that's always been missing. That's what you're rejecting, along with the evidence of pair production, in favour of mysticism.
I'm sorry, but you're the one rejecting the evidence of pair production. Remember?:
Until then, look at the evidence of electron/positron pair production and annihilation. You typically achieve the former by splitting a +1022keV photon over a nucleus.
And remember the fact that this is not true since a 1022 keV photon will most likely Compton scatter.


What would you rather do, understand the twist/turn dualism of the electromagnetic field wherein action in space causes motion, or believe in parallel universes and time travel and things not existing until you look at them?
Nice false dichotomy fallacy.


Groan. Don't you get it get Tubby? I'm the skeptic.
That may be true. But you also have not even the slightest idea what you're talking about.


You're the sucker.
For believing repeated, quantified experimental data over your salad of words, pretty pictures, ignorance, false dichotomies and insults?

[The Man]

I invalidate the theory of relativity.

According to the theory of relativity the time pauses when it reaches the speed of light.

The time bases on entropy in other words that the energy alters its density and the substance alters with time.

How could the time pause when a spaceship meets photons that come towards with a speed of light?

No way!

On the contrary, the entropy accelerates the more the spaceship meets photons coming towards.

The sun light makes the paint to peel off in other words it alters to a less dense substance.

How about when the ship meets photons while itself moves with a speed of light?


The time of the substance / the energy on the surface of a ship that moves with the speed of light has not been paused and that’s a fact!

It is absolutely ridiculous to claim that the time pauses when moving with the speed of light!

The faster the photon moves in realation to that object that it hits, the bigger the kinetc energy is.

If we think that the time of the ship slows down, then the photons comimg towards would hit the ship even with faster speed.
In relation to the time of the ship and therefore the computational kinetic energy of the photons would be even stronger ect.

This makes an obvious contradiction.

The photons coming from the sun make the paint to peel off in other words to alter faster into a less dense? Apparently this is a proven fact? I´m sure that the sunny side of my house peels off faster!

If my house would move towards the sun with the speed of light, the time of our houses substance / energy would not have definitely paused and I am also very sure of that!

According to the theory of www.onesimpleprinciple.com the house would have altered into a light (=photons) and during that transform the time of the house would have begin to advance faster and faster.

.



Sorry Pixie, once again the only thing you invalidate is your own understanding. Other than that, it sounds like your house could use a paint job. I would recommend a UV resistant house paint. Even if you’re not expecting that your “house would move towards the sun with the speed of light”.

[Tubbythin]

Yes, the wrong inference was drawn. It's like looking for a cannonball in the middle of a whirlpool, and when you probe down to a 10cm resolution and still can't find it, proclaiming that the cannonball must be smaller than that.
Please show explicitly how every experiment that has ever measured the size of the electron is wrong.


Tell Lorentz from me: it isn't a cannonball.
Pardon.


Gotta go. Come on guys, raise your game.
Why bother with such pitiful opposition?

[Farsight]

You're making the (very common) assumption that the star's rest frame is somehow the "real" one---containing the star's real shape---and everyone else is just "seeing it differently". No, in special relativity the quantity you want to call the star's "shape" is simply not an invariant. It's an observer dependent quantity.That's not true ben. I know my relativity. You might measure length contraction, but you're smart enough to know that measurements are affected by relative velocity, just as they're affected by distance. If you're in a very fast spaceship and you see a star looking flattened, you know it can't be flat from every angle of approach. And you know it doesn't flatten more when you speed up. Just as you're smart enough to know that this is not oval:

http://mattwisdom.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/compact-disc_web.jpg

If you want to figure out what the actual invariant quantity is---and there is one---and therefore make true statements instead of false ones, you'll need to do it more carefully. The ability to do this correctly, and avoid doing it incorrectly, is highly correlated with the ability to DO THE MATH.The math of special relativity is trivial. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Simple_inference_of_time_dilation_du e_to_relative_velocity for some arithmetic, though it isn't expressed as simply as it could be. Pythogoras' theorem applies because the hypotenuse is the light path with length of c=1 in natural units, and the base represents your speed as a fraction of c. Work out the height for a length contraction factor and take a reciprocal for a time dilation factor. The "space-time interval" is said to be invariant, but actually both space and time are defined using the motion of light. It all comes down to motion. I'll see about posting up Time Explained.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by Farsight
Sol: I said your motion does not affect the spaceship. You said:

Sure it does. When I rotate, there's a "fictitious force" that grabs the ship and swings it violently around. That's a completely consistent description, one that's exactly equivalent to any other valid description (and by the way, it's the one we tend to use on earth - ever heard of Coriolis force?).Now pay attention and listen: when you're observing a spaceship, and you move, you don't affect that spaceship one iota. Your measurements change. That's all.

All: I'm disappointed that nobody is putting sol straight on this kind of basic stuff.

Sol: no, the neutrino is not merely a lightweight electron without charge.

[ben m]

Sol: no, the neutrino is not merely a lightweight electron without charge.

This is increasingly strange. Farsight, what experimentally-known properties of the neutrino are you considering when you make this statement? Perhaps you have some of them wrong.

[ctamblyn]

I've been waiting for an excuse to try out the LaTeX tags, so here goes...
Maxwell's equations in a region of space with no charges:

\begin{*align}
\nabla\cdot E &= 0 \\
\nabla\cdot B &= 0 \\
\nabla\times E &= -\partial B / \partial t \\
\nabla\times B &= \partial E / \partial t
\end{align*}

Notice the pleasing symmetry between E and B. Hypnotic, isn't it? Notice that, given any solution, we can generate another valid solution by swapping E and B around via a duality rotation (E, B) -> (B, -E). Since your model postulates that a suitably-confined e/m wave - a solution of the above equations - can give rise to an electric monopole field, it follows that we could obtain an equally valid solution which looks like a magnetic monopole. There's no way around it.

[Farsight]

Before I left on vacation, you claimed that you could provide the fine structure constant, 1/137.035999679(94). I've returned to (surprise) discover that you have done no such thing. Your excuse is that it is a running constant, which has certainly not stopped particle physicists from determining it experimentally at a given energy level. And I quote "I can tell you why the fine structure constant takes the value it does". You have done no such thing.Sorry to disappoint you Russ.

Second, you claimed "I'll show an experiment that has a behaviour that is not properly predicted by current models". You have shown no such experiment, all you have done is claimed that models must show "how" things work to your satisfaction. There are things within the standard model that do not give a why or a how, this doesn't make the standard model invalid, it just means that a) there are some things that cannot be answered or b) that there is a better theory around somewhere.Cut me some slack, I'm run off my feet here. One such experiment is the quantum hall effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Hall_effect). You use it to measure the fine structure constant. This tells you the relative strength of the electromagnetic force versus the strong force. You measure it up in space, and you measure it near the surface of a star. The difference tells you that gravity is a gradient in the relative strengths. That's how you unify gravity. It's trivial, but it isn't predicted.

You've even decided that "fundamental" can mean anything you want, the standard model carefully defines the meaning of "fundamental" within the framework of the standard model. It makes no sense to claim it means something else and the show contradictions within the standard model by using that different meaning.It isn't me saying the electron is elementary or fundamental. And if you paid more attention you'd appreciate that I support the standard model, apart from the Higgs sector, and the primary issue here is interpretational.

Not only that, you haven't even provided any examples of your theory in practice. Not one instance where we can use your theory to predict the outcome of any experiment.How about this: expect cryogenic electron emission to show seasonal variations. And I did refer to something that surprised even me: the Dirac string trick. Throw neutrinos at electrons and look for unexpected positrons.

I also find your quote "Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry" highly ironic. You'll note that theoretical physicists in general do not "believe" in the theory they are developing, nor do they claim that current theories are junk (unless they have really good evidence). Come off it Russ. People have spent their careers on string theory because they believe in it. And now it's a busted flush because other people have finally noticed that it predicts nothing and isn't science.

Even Brian Greene, who makes a whole lot of money selling books that describe the current state of string theory, is sure to state that the theory is incomplete and that "But let me state categorically, if the theory is wrong, I'd like to know it today so I wouldn't waste my time on it any longer." and also "We will have no certainty that it's right until the experiments show that it's right."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/greene.htmlWhen you try to explain people why their precious theory is wrong, starting with the basics of electromagnetism, they reject it like a medieval theocracy. They dredge up specious reasons to dismiss it, wilfully disregarding pair production and coming out with the unsupportable assertion that spin is intrinsic. We end up in a situation wherein theory is deliberately insulated from experimental disproof, and where experimental confirmation is contrived to be far-off and difficult, and in truth is employed as a fig-leaf to confer respectability to a speculation. My criticism of supersymmetry is based on the prediction of a whole new set of particles by people who don't understand the electron, don't want to, and don't want anybody else understanding it either.

[Farsight]

Wow, even I know that you are wrong about the QM property of spin. I suppose you can tell Pauli about that as well. It is an instrinsic property observed in certain particles.No it isn't. It's a real rotation in two dimensions, a circulatory motion of the stress-energy that makes up the particle. That's why we see a magnetic dipole moment. It can't happen without that motion. Saying it can isn't scientific, it's mystic.

And while you can view a positron as a time reversed electron, there are reasons that it doesn't really act that way.Agreed. Understanding time is key to this.

[Tubbythin]

Saying it can isn't scientific, it's mystic.


Wrong. All its saying is that the quantum world behaves differently to the classical world.

[Tubbythin]

It isn't me saying the electron is elementary or fundamental. And if you paid more attention you'd appreciate that I support the standard model, apart from the Higgs sector, and the primary issue here is interpretational.

No you don't. The electron cannot ever be comprised of photons in the Standard Model. If you think it can then you truly have not even the faintest idea about it.


Come off it Russ. People have spent their careers on string theory because they believe in it. And now it's a busted flush because other people have finally noticed that it predicts nothing and isn't science.
It predicts loads of things. But nobody has come up with a way of testing any of these (yet). Your theory hypothesis blind assertion, on the other hand, has been proven wrong by countless experiments to extraordinary precision.


When you try to explain people why their precious theory is wrong, starting with the basics of electromagnetism, they reject it like a medieval theocracy. They dredge up specious reasons to dismiss it, wilfully disregarding pair production and coming out with the unsupportable assertion that spin is intrinsic.
You don't even understand the very basics of pair production. Why should we listen to a word you have to say?

[ben m]

You use it to measure the fine structure constant. This tells you the relative strength of the electromagnetic force versus the strong force. You measure it up in space, and you measure it near the surface of a star. The difference tells you that gravity is a gradient in the relative strengths. That's how you unify gravity. It's trivial, but it isn't predicted.

The fine structure constant has nothing whatsoever to do with the strong force.


It isn't me saying the electron is elementary or fundamental. And if you paid more attention you'd appreciate that I support the standard model, apart from the Higgs sector, and the primary issue here is interpretational.


I suspect you don't know enough about the Standard Model to understand how deeply your theory disagrees with it. Remember, the Standard Model tells us exactly how photons interact with each other and with themselves (loop diagrams and whatnot) and a "self-trapped photon goes in a twisted circle and looks like a 511 keV charged fermion" is unambiguously not compatible with the Standard Model.

[Farsight]

There is no horrible issue and it is trivial. "Charge" is always "more fundamental" than "current". The charge of an object is a property of the object.I'm sorry Russ, but you have to get over this wall called intrinsic. The charge is there because the "current" is moving in a twisted turning path going round and round. Something has to be moving, otherwise how on earth can we see that magnetic dipole moment? Call it wavefunction if you prefer, but note the references to current in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation. Whatever you call it, the result is a charged particle. When you move it, the result is "current". Move it back and forth and it's alternating current. An electromagnetic field rises and falls in a sinusoidal fashion. Just as it does when a photon zips past.

I think that The Man is slightly wrong. The electromagnetic wave (incoming photon) does not produce any charge separation (outgoing electron and positron). It is the imparting of momentum to the nearby nucleus that allows the photon to become a separate electron and positron and thus separate charges. Without a nucleus all you have is a virtual electron and positron pair.I agree that there's some room to discuss what The Man said. But the nucleus is not in itself essential. Check out photon-photon pair production (http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=1h&oq=photon-photon&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_en-GBGB240GB240&q=photon-photon+pair+production).

The displacement current of an electromagnetic wave has nothing to do with charges (it is a change in the flux density of the electric field).Fair enough.

In electromagnetism, displacement current is a quantity that is defined in terms of the rate of change of electric displacement field. Displacement current has the units of electric current density, and it has an associated magnetic field just as actual currents do. However it is not an electric current of moving charges, but a time-varying electric field. In materials, there is also a contribution from the slight motion of charges bound in atoms, dielectric polarization.But then you go onto the properties of an electron so you must know this already.Yes.

The reason that an "electron appears to be twice as effective in producing a magnetic moment as the corresponding classical charged body" is simply that it is not a classical charged body. It is a quantum mechanical charged body.I prefer a moebius double-rotation to a statement that essentially says "it's magic, and you mere mortals can't ever hope to understand it". Like I said, I'm the skeptic here, not you.

[Tubbythin]

I'm sorry Russ, but you have to get over this wall called intrinsic. The charge is there because the "current" is moving in a twisted turning path going round and round. Something has to be moving, otherwise how on earth can we see that magnetic dipole moment? Call it wavefunction if you prefer, but note the references to current in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation. Whatever you call it, the result is a charged particle. When you move it, the result is "current". Move it back and forth and it's alternating current. An electromagnetic field rises and falls in a sinusoidal fashion. Just as it does when a photon zips past.
Again: The quantum world does not behave in the same way as the classical world.


Like I said, I'm the skeptic here, not you.
Nope. A sceptic is not someone who rejects experimental results that are some of the most precise in physics history because they want the quantum world to behave the same way as the classical world.

[ctamblyn]

Cut me some slack, I'm run off my feet here. One such experiment is the quantum hall effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Hall_effect). You use it to measure the fine structure constant. This tells you the relative strength of the electromagnetic force versus the strong force. You measure it up in space, and you measure it near the surface of a star. The difference tells you that gravity is a gradient in the relative strengths. That's how you unify gravity. It's trivial, but it isn't predicted.

Begging your pardon, but the fine structure constant is given by $\alpha = e^2 / \hbar c$. It's a dimensionless measure of the strength of e/m interactions, and the strong force doesn't come into it.
Also, do you have a link to an experiment which shows this gravity-dependence of the ratio of the strength of the strong force to the strength of the e/m force? I'd find that very interesting.

[ctamblyn]

No it isn't. It's a real rotation in two dimensions, a circulatory motion of the stress-energy that makes up the particle. That's why we see a magnetic dipole moment. It can't happen without that motion. Saying it can isn't scientific, it's mystic.

As I said earlier, you can't get a spin of 1/2 with orbital angular momentum. You can only get whole-integer spins.

[Farsight]

A) I await your explanation of why "a twisting turning 511 keV photon" should create (a) the divergence term in Gauss's Law,Photons normally travel in straight lines, and when they don't space is curved. It's in two dimensions so and diminishes with distance so curled is a better word, but it's easier to think of a flat spiral:

http://www.jbum.com/pixmagic/p-pinwheel.jpg

The charge is the amount of twist, permittivity is the "twistability" of space. Gauss's law is the degree of twist at a surface. The divergence tells you how much it changes.

(b) the current term in Ampere's Law,Is saying how many electrons you're moving past when you travel down a vertical column of electrons. Or how much charge you move past and how fast.

(c) NOT the magnetic monopole term,Sorry I'm not clear what you're asking for. It's an electromagnetic field. Move through it and you see a magnetic field. A magnetic field is not created by any particle, it's merely an aspect of a particle's electromagnetic field when you're in motion with respect to it.

NOT the monopole current term, NOT nothing-whatsoever, NOT a bunch of dipole or high-order terms, etc. etc. etc. Remember, real electrons (and muons, and protons, and quarks, and W-bosons, but NOT photons or neutrinos or Z-bosons or neutrons) behave this way.As above. This is sounding like a defensive barrage ben.

B) All available data is consistent with an electron which is pointlike at scales down to 10^-20 m.Apart from pair production and annihilation and Compton wavelength, and electron spin, magnetic dipole moment, anomalous magnetic dipole moment, dual-slit electron interference, and the Aharanov-Bohm effect which reprises Ehrengerg & Siday's The Refractive Index in Electron Optics and the Principles of Dynamics. The spin angular momentum is the killer. Point particles cannot exhibit angular momentum. Those scattering experiments are like throwing rocks at a spinning elastic hoop exerting a frame-dragging effect on a rubber sheet extending away in all directions. They deform a portion of the hoop into a v shape then bounce back. The smaller the rocks and the harder you throw, the sharper the v. The pointlike inference is looking at the tip of the v, and it's like expecting a billiard ball at the heart of a whirlpool. It just ain't there.

[Farsight]

That is wrong. The second is defined by counting 9,192,631,770 periods of the transition. The motion of light has nothing to do with it.Wanna bet? You sit there watching microwave peaks go by. One goes by. You count 1. Another goes by. You count 2. And so on. When you get to 9,192,631,770 that's a second. If those microwaves are moving slower, your second is bigger. That's it.

Wrong. There is plenty of evidence that time dilation exists. Experimental Basis of Special Relativity - Test of Time Dilation (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#Tests_of_time_dilation).Note that many of these tests were done before 1967, e.g.I'm not saying time dilation doesn't occur. I'm saying why it occurs. The motion of light defines the thing called time. It's just a cumulative measure of motion. Yes, I think I'm going to have to give you guys Time Explained.

[Farsight]

What law of nature tells you that electrons have to be composed of something else? Is there some lost verse in the Book of Genesis which says " ... and the LORD says there shall be only one truly elementary particle which makes up all the others" ? You seem mighty convinced that Nature has to work that way.I don't hold truck with "the laws of nature". It's symmetry that underpins them anyway, and it's all to do with rotations and action and how stress-energy moves. What tells me electrons are composed of something else is pair production and annihilation, along with spin, magnetic moment, etc, see above. So don't give me all that genesis stuff. You're the one dismissing scientific evidence here, along with Minkowski and Maxwell etc. Because it isn't what you were taught, and because it isn't in your textbook. You're treating mathematics like runes that are more important than experiment and observation, and you're treating your textbook like a bible that's more important than logic and discussion. Now come on, start thinking for yourself.

[Farsight]

OK. I'm not sure what there is to say at this stage, to be honest. As I suggested earlier in the thread, without solid quantitative predictions, it would require something of a leap of faith for someone to accept this model. The theory needs to be cast as a coherent, mathematical model, eventually capable of making quantitative predictions about observables. Until that stage is reached, the reaction from the physics community is naturally going to be somewhat unenthusiastic. Anyway, good luck with that if you decide to pursue it.Thanks. I do accept your point. But actually, I don't want to cast this as a coherent mathematical model myself. That might sound odd, but think about it. If I locked myself away and came up with something that really flew, every theoretical physicist in the world would then be redundant. It's too late for them to get involved once it's finished. Moreover they'd look like crystal-sphere fools, and the public would feel betrayed. There would be a backlash, and the upshot would be a disaster. I'm trying to help physics, not destroy it.

[Reality Check]

Wanna bet? You sit there watching microwave peaks go by. One goes by. You count 1. Another goes by. You count 2. And so on. When you get to 9,192,631,770 that's a second. If those microwaves are moving slower, your second is bigger. That's it.

That is right. And we can do this at rest wrt the clock and see that the one second remains as one second. Thus the motion of the light has no effect. That is it.
If we move the clock then there are all sorts of effects to take in account and when we do that we also see that one second remains as one second.

And of course the postulate that the speed of light is a constant is needed for special relativity to work and it does - Experimental Basis of Relativity (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html).
Of course you could postulate that the speed of light is not a constant. In that case you have to state how it varies, e.g. that a specific transformation between coordinates is needed (e.g. the Lorentz transformation). In that case you get the same theory from a more complex set of postulates.

That leads so a question for you which I will put into another post.


I'm not saying time dilation doesn't occur. I'm saying why it occurs.

Who cares "why" it happens. What science is interested in in modeling how the universe presents itself to us. How it happens is explained by relativity.

[Farsight]

Erm, regarding the nice picture of a torus - it might interest you to know that orbital angular momentum can never give you a spin of 1/2. The eigenvalues of each component of orbital angular momentum are always integers (in units where hbar = 1). Only intrinsic angular momentum can have half-integer eigenvalues.I'm afraid I have to go, but let's talk more on this. The torus motion picked out by the dark line demands two rotations to return to the original orientation and location, with hbar neing the diameter of the torus.

[Reality Check]

First asked 22 March 2010
Farsight states that the speed of light changes.
The posulates of special relativity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity#Postulates) are


The Principle of Relativity – The laws by which the states of physical systems undergo change are not affected, whether these changes of state be referred to the one or the other of two systems in uniform translatory motion relative to each other.[1]
The Principle of Invariant Light Speed – "... light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity [speed] c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body." (from the preface).[1] That is, light in vacuum propagates with the speed c (a fixed constant, independent of direction) in at least one system of inertial coordinates (the "stationary system"), regardless of the state of motion of the light source.

and special relativity has been extensively tested, e.g. Experimental Basis of Relativity (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html).

Farsight,
How does the speed of light change in your theory in order to reproduce the experimental results?

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Reality Check http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=5731129#post5731129)
That does pose a yet another nasty problem for Farsight's idea:
Farsight:

What does your idea predict for the decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
What is the measured decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
What does this say about the conservation of charge?
FYI: Particle physics experiments have observed trillions of interactions. The results are extensively studied. Physicists are especially interested when particles "vanish", i.e. a charged particle is tracked to a point and then is no longer visible. This is a signature of a decay process, e.g. muon decay. Of course what they always see is that there are one or more charged particles resulting from the decay.

Huh? It predicts a decay rate of zero. Like the measured decay rate. And that says charge is conserved. I suppose the next nasty problem will be that "my model" doesn't predict the price of eggs.
Then your idea remains as wrong.
As I stated before (and other posters have told you):
The electron would have to have

The same mass as the photon (zero).
The same charge as the photon (none).
The same spin as the photon (1).
The same magneic moment as the photon (zero).
Arbitrarily saying that that photon goes along a path that restricts it magically inside an equally arbitary and physically impossible (the upper limit to the radius of an electron is 10^-20 meters :eye-poppi !) radius does not change the mass, charge, spin or magnetic moment of the photon.

A mass of zero remains as zero.
A photon with an energy of 510.9810 KeV has an equivalent mass as an electron. But then you have the problem of explaining why a 510.9811 KeV photon cannot form an electron.
My guess is that you will assert that your magical path can only be travelled by photons at 510.9810 KeV because you want them to.
A charge of zero remains as zero and thus the magnetic moment remains as zero.
The spin remains as 1. This is an intrinsic quantum mechnaical property of a photon. If a photon has a spin of 1/2 then it is not a photon. It is a massless neutrino. And if neutrinos turn out to have mass then I think that it is a totally new particle.
But each of these points deserves a question in a separate post.

[ctamblyn]

Thanks. I do accept your point. But actually, I don't want to cast this as a coherent mathematical model myself. That might sound odd, but think about it. If I locked myself away and came up with something that really flew, every theoretical physicist in the world would then be redundant. It's too late for them to get involved once it's finished. Moreover they'd look like crystal-sphere fools, and the public would feel betrayed. There would be a backlash, and the upshot would be a disaster. I'm trying to help physics, not destroy it.
If the idea could be shown to be correct, it would be welcomed - eventually. Yes, you can always expect some degree of resistance to a new idea, but if you can show that (a) your theory doesn't contradict existing experimental data and (b) can predict - correctly! - phenomena which the standard model cannot, then the scientific community as a whole will be grateful. Most people did not feel redundant or betrayed when Einstein produced his explanation for the photoelectric effect (he got a Nobel prize in 1921). Same for SR and GR. Same for any other new theory that has turned out to be correct, at least in the long run.
And if it's wrong, then no problem - it's better to know, and to find out sooner rather than later. The best way to find out is to dig down into the details and hunt for logical/mathematical inconsistencies or disagreement with known experimental data, i.e. try to falsify the theory.
On that note, I think your main problem areas are going to be:
You need a mechanism which allows a photon to become "self-trapped" in a stable bound state, that does not contradict the known attributes of photon-photon scattering.
Standard QM isn't going to let you get spin 1/2 from an orbital motion, unless you actually change the spatial topology.
The theory, as presented so far, allows for a continuous spectrum of electron masses.
From what I've seem so far, if you theory can produce charged particles, then it also allows magnetic monopoles (not to mention some bizarre part electric-part magnetic particles).
Photon-electron scattering in this model reduces to photon-photon scattering, so the cross-sections are going to come out wrong.

That'll do for starters, I'm sure.

[Reality Check]

Farsight's idea for the electron seems to be that it is made of a photon travelling on a some kind of "self-limiting" "moebius double-rotation" path that in some unspecified way creates charge from an uncharged photon, changes the photon spin and only contains photons with exactly 510.9810(13) KeV (the mass of the electron).

Farsight - if you have a better description of your idea for the electron, e.g. the exact mathmetical path that the photon travels, then I would appreciate it.

So let us start with spin and the observation that it is an intrinsic property of particles.

First asked 22 March 2010
Farsight,
Do you disagree with the experiments that show that spin is an intrinsic property of particles?

The Stern–Gerlach experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern%E2%80%93Gerlach_experiment) is the classic experiment that shows that paricles have spins that

are quantized, i.e. are not classical,
are intrinsic because passing a beam of particles in a known spin state through a S-G apparatus does not split them up and
obey quantum mechanical laws, not classical ones.

[ctamblyn]

Then your idea remains as wrong.
As I stated before (and other posters have told you):
The electron would have to have

The same mass as the photon (zero).
The same charge as the photon (none).
The same spin as the photon (1).
The same magneic moment as the photon (zero).
Arbitrarily saying that that photon goes along a path that restricts it magically inside an equally arbitary and physically impossible (the upper limit to the radius of an electron is 10^-20 meters :eye-poppi !) radius does not change the mass, charge, spin or magnetic moment of the photon.

A mass of zero remains as zero.
A photon with an energy of 510.9810 KeV has an equivalent mass as an electron. But then you have the problem of explaining why a 510.9811 KeV photon cannot form an electron.
My guess is that you will assert that your magical path can only be travelled by photons at 510.9810 KeV because you want them to.
A charge of zero remains as zero and thus the magnetic moment remains as zero.
The spin remains as 1. This is an intrinsic quantum mechnaical property of a photon. If a photon has a spin of 1/2 then it is not a photon. It is a massless neutrino. And if neutrinos turn out to have mass then I think that it is a totally new particle.
But each of these points deserves a question in a separate post.
On the topic of spin, I wouldn't necessarily expect the total momentum of the self-trapped photon to be 1, as there'd be an orbital contribution (unless for some reason the orbital contribution is restricted). So, not only do you not get 1/2, you get a whole spectrum of integer-value spins.
Of course, that's just my opinion based on what I understand of a model which quite clearly would require as-yet unknown laws of physics to work in the first place. :)

[ctamblyn]

Farsight - if you have a better description of your idea for the electron, e.g. the exact mathmetical path that the photon travels, then I would appreciate it.
^^^ This. ^^^

[Kwalish Kid]

I don't hold truck with "the laws of nature". It's symmetry that underpins them anyway, and it's all to do with rotations and action and how stress-energy moves. What tells me electrons are composed of something else is pair production and annihilation, along with spin, magnetic moment, etc, see above. So don't give me all that genesis stuff. You're the one dismissing scientific evidence here, along with Minkowski and Maxwell etc. Because it isn't what you were taught, and because it isn't in your textbook. You're treating mathematics like runes that are more important than experiment and observation, and you're treating your textbook like a bible that's more important than logic and discussion. Now come on, start thinking for yourself.
Can you tell us exactly what part of Minkowski we are dismissing? How, exactly, does Minkowsi's work fit in with your work?

[The Man]

Thanks. I do accept your point. But actually, I don't want to cast this as a coherent mathematical model myself. That might sound odd, but think about it. If I locked myself away and came up with something that really flew, every theoretical physicist in the world would then be redundant. It's too late for them to get involved once it's finished. Moreover they'd look like crystal-sphere fools, and the public would feel betrayed. There would be a backlash, and the upshot would be a disaster. I'm trying to help physics, not destroy it.

No actually it does not sound odd at all (at least not on this forum). You simply want someone else or everyone else to actually do your work for you. Now I must say that this pseudo altruistic (and rather morbid) fantasy of yours for why you don’t actually want to do your own work is a new twist. Somehow I don’t foresee mobs of people running around with pitch forks and torches proclaiming “They lied to us about how our cell phones and IPods work!!!!!”. So if for some reason it makes you feel better to imagine “crystal-sphere fools”, “disaster” and the “backlash” of a “betrayed” “public” as the reason you won’t or simply can’t do your own work, then hey, whatever floats your boat. However you are seriously deluding yourself if you think that your “I'm trying to help physics, not destroy it” nonsense is going fare any better than any of the other nonsense you’ve been spouting here, which is just you specifically trying to destroy physics through the shear power of ignorance. Anyway, thanks again for not only asserting that you have no coherent mathematical model, but that you have deliberately not even attempted to create a coherent mathematical model (due to whatever paranoid fantasy that you think suits you best), so again you are simply at an impasse. Time to get off your keister Farsigth, break out some of that “proper mathematics”, forget your nightmare scenarios of zombie “crystal-sphere fools” being hunted by the backlash of a betrayed public and try to develop your assertions into a coherent mathematical model. I think you may find an even more horrible outcome awaits (at least for you), that your assertions simply do not produce a mathematical model that is in any way coherent with the evidence.

[ben m]

Photons normally travel in straight lines, and when they don't space is curved. It's in two dimensions so and diminishes with distance so curled is a better word, but it's easier to think of a flat spiral:

The charge is the amount of twist, permittivity is the "twistability" of space. Gauss's law is the degree of twist at a surface. The divergence tells you how much it changes.


You seem to be contradicting yourself. Charge can't both be the twist and the divergence of the twist.

If you were to state this in simple vector-calculus terms it would be easy to see whether or not it is consistent with Gauss's Law or not. Are you interested in finding out whether it is consistent?


Apart from pair production and annihilation and Compton wavelength, and electron spin, magnetic dipole moment, anomalous magnetic dipole moment, dual-slit electron interference, and the Aharanov-Bohm effect which reprises Ehrengerg & Siday's The Refractive Index in Electron Optics and the Principles of Dynamics. The spin angular momentum is the killer.

Nope, those are all 100% consistent with the electron being a quantum point particle as in QED.


Point particles cannot exhibit angular momentum.

You keep stating this over and over, but it is false. It is a preconception of yours that you made up out of thin air without paying any attention to Nature. It is only a classical point particle, like a bowling ball of radius zero, which cannot exhibit angular momentum. The electron is not a classical point particle, it's a quantum-mechanical point particle.

[Tubbythin]

Thanks. I do accept your point. But actually, I don't want to cast this as a coherent mathematical model myself. That might sound odd, but think about it. If I locked myself away and came up with something that really flew, every theoretical physicist in the world would then be redundant. It's too late for them to get involved once it's finished. Moreover they'd look like crystal-sphere fools, and the public would feel betrayed. There would be a backlash, and the upshot would be a disaster. I'm trying to help physics, not destroy it.

Uh-huh...

40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)

[Tubbythin]

No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic". That's a non-explanation.

While we're at it...


10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".

[Dancing David]

Thanks. I do accept your point. But actually, I don't want to cast this as a coherent mathematical model myself. That might sound odd, but think about it. If I locked myself away and came up with something that really flew, every theoretical physicist in the world would then be redundant. It's too late for them to get involved once it's finished. Moreover they'd look like crystal-sphere fools, and the public would feel betrayed. There would be a backlash, and the upshot would be a disaster. I'm trying to help physics, not destroy it.

Um, no coherent mathematical model, then you got nothing, now do you?

[Dancing David]

You keep stating this over and over, but it is false. It is a preconception of yours that you made up out of thin air without paying any attention to Nature. It is only a classical point particle, like a bowling ball of radius zero, which cannot exhibit angular momentum. The electron is not a classical point particle, it's a quantum-mechanical point particle.

Some how I keep seeing bombers taking off from the airstrip, the concepts going over someones head.