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Visualizing Electricity

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Re: Visualizing Electricity

#91

This might be a workable visualization. As physics it's wrong. There is an existing QM explanation for current flow in solids, attributed to Bloch and dating back to the late 1920s. It doesn't work like this visualization. For example in this visualization the electrons aren't transported anywhere, they just sit in place and rotate. That's misleading. In fact charge flows. I worry about using an incorrect physical pi…

Because charge is rotation in this visualization, we can also say that the charge is moving since the speed of rotation propagates after the circuit is closed. This is a patent reification, of course, but the idea is consistent with QM.

[deleted]

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the extreme electricity works just fine without the electrons. Take two hydrogen nucleus without any electrons (aka proton H+). Throw them around and see where they interact and land. They experience electrostatic repulsion, no electron cloud required. Local classical Maxwell is enough to explain electricity no need for QM. I think I get what you are trying to do : "making the Light field implicit". It's a temptin…

photons are transactions between atoms.

Your formulation is misleading.

"Light is the way to exchange momentum between charge carriers".

First atoms are neutral, while light affect can only charge particles.

The atom is a composite of a positively charged point-like nucleous, and a negatively charged cloud-like charge density. This complex dance duo, can store energy in between them. Those are the bound states of the electron, but that's not the matter of electricity but chemistry. In electricity, this dance duo can store energy in its surrounding by deforming its electron cloud to become an electrostatic dipole.

Transaction is the wrong picture to have when we are dealing with electricity. The continuous picture is a lot better.

The momentum of an atom is a continuous quantity. At every moment in time it can be exchanged locally in continuous amounts. Both the positive nucleous and electron cloud are taking from the field and giving locally to the field.

Photon is kind of a confusing term because you have to distinguish between the virtual photon which mediates the coulomb interaction in a continuous way, and the real one which can go on its way, or be absorbed/emitted by atoms provided that the electron cloud can deform in such a way to account for energy conservation during the collision.

To see the distinction take the previous example of two protons H+ going towards each other then away. The trajectory to have in mind is they are following a perfect curves trajectories, and not a sequence of straight lines occasionally changing direction when the photon transaction happen. Those typical QM like trajectory you see in cloud chambers need the energy to become bounded in some discrete way. For example electron fly straight, real photon hit and is absorbed and atom change direction to conserve momentum and the electron jump to a higher orbital to conserve the energy (the energy is bounded to the atom for some time), the electron keep flying straight, then it emits a new photon and change direction. These kind of trajectories happen when the energy can only bounded in discrete quantities, but that's a matter about QM, and not electricity.

Finally clarifying what that the light field is carrying in : momentum, and making clear that the light field doesn't carry electric charge.

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#93

My mental image (fwiw) is that the push of an electron is able to push electrons both in immediate proximity and to electrons at a distance. So, that allows the relatively slow speed of moving electrons to produce nearly light speed changes in momentum of faraway electrons.

yep. I think i agree.

Nice. And this is in contrast to pushing water (sound wave), where the wave propagates only at the speed that molecules bump. Like, if I'm in a big line, and someone pushes at the back of the line, I only get pushed by the person immediately behind me. An electron is able to be pushed by electrons at the back of the back of the line. The electron immediately behind an electron will push hardest, proportional to inverse square law. But when there are twenty electronics behind, and the very last one pushes, it has a decreasing effect on all electrons in front, but at time 2, those movements allow propagate forward, etc etc.

Wish I could visualize that. Oh yeah. Ha!

I like you spindle representation of inverse square law.

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