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Visualizing Electricity

demystifyingscience.com

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Re: Visualizing Electricity

#51

Post by mncharity »

Apropos visualizing atoms and their electrons, here's a fun sidebar. This IBM video[1] was made with an STM scanning tunneling microscope, which sees outer electrons. So while it shows the IIRC carbon monoxide molecules, standing up like buoys, as little balls, the background copper surface of delocalized electrons looks smooth, with ripples. You can't see the individual copper atoms. But if you instead used an AFM atomic force microscope, which can feel inner electrons, then you could - here's one of silicon[2].

When crafting and teaching abstract representations, it's easy to forget that these are real physical objects.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0 [2] https://imgur.com/a/7Onbz8s

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#53

Post by mickfaraday »

kens wrote: post #49

I understand electricity reasonably well, but that video has left me very confused. Multiple watchings didn't help. The first issue is I don't know what is real and what is metaphorical. The hydrogen orbitals are real? Are they squashed like that?. But the rotations are entirely fictional? Or do they correspond to electron spin? Do hydrogen atoms really share electron clouds or is that a metaphor? Several specific is…

Thanks for your comment. Yes, this model hopefully incorporates more of 'what is real' than the alternatives.

The hydrogen orbital, for example, is approximately spherical/toroidal, which matches the radial distribution plot of QM.

Ionized hydrogen has a delocalized electron; it is not gone — but rather elsewhere. In our model it is enmeshed with the others in the column.

Speed is used as a surrogate for momentum because QM doesn't allow us to deconstruct the speed/direction from the momentum separately. Ideally we could illustrate a more cohesive motion as well as faster for greater momentum.

Current is transfer of motion from the high-momentum, high-V, shells to weaker ones.

I have briefly discussed resistors and other elements of circuit in other threads here. Check it out and let's talk there.

Concerning your comment about vacuums, we have to understand that there truly is no vacuum. We assume that when atoms are isolated, their surface pressure is decreased such that they can occupy tremendous volumes. Currents in outer space are present with 8.49×10^-23 atoms per 10 cubic centimeters.

Hopefully we can move toward capturing QM, and ED descriptions of electricity. A magnetism video will follow soon.

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#55

Post by mickfaraday »

glogla wrote: post #36
ly wrote: post #8

In case the author of the video reads this: I tried to watch it but after 2 minutes I just had to turn it off as I couldn’t handle that music anymore. It’s extremely distracting when you try to listen to what the narrator is explaining. It’s not that I don’t like background music in explanatory videos, but this music is way too loud and complex to not distract. Also, considering the video is uploaded to YouTube, I wo…

Opposing anecdote: I liked the music. It made the video feel nostalgically educational, which is the feeling I get from the whole site.

Thank you. We want to make science beautiful and full of possibility.

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#57

Post by mickfaraday »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #46

It's clear that a lot of work went in to this video and it's hard to hear criticism, especially of a labor of love. At the same time, I'd really like to see better analogies used for electricity, and that's going to require some very high quality work to replace the ones currently used. The background music was quite bad and distracted a lot from the dialogue. (While I personally usually like the sound of bagpipes, m…

Thanks for commenting.

The primary problem with the other analogies is that they don't use real objects. Physics is the science that studies objects that exist, after all. That means we can't be crashing concepts into one another (like charge reification, for instance). It's important to begin physical explanations with objects instead of concepts, so we advance the atom.

While this depiction of the atom isn't the end-all-be-all atom, it's a step in the right direction, hopefully.

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#58

Post by mickfaraday »

mncharity wrote: post #56

Aphysically-high-speed particle tracks are used to represent wind.[1] I wonder if one could play similar games of colorization and expressive particles with electric circuits? What might one do with AC? [1] https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-pressure

For us, A/C is simply back and forth motion of the e-shells.

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#59

Post by GistNoesis »

Your analogy doesn't work for me.

Imagine the following simple case : A AC generator connected to two capacitors in series. Signal --||----||-- Ground . The voltage potential at the middle : In your analogy there is no reason for anything to turn as the electron wave are discontinuous inside the capacitors (there is a huge gap in the order of micrometers between each plate of the capacitor).

The main important thing of electricity is the Electric field not the electron field. The electric charges get pushed around by the electric field. Each of these electric charge carry with it its Coulomb electric field. Sum contributions of every charge and you have the local electric field.

In fact even more fundamental is the electric potential which you can take the slope to obtain the electric field.

Re: Visualizing Electricity

#60

Post by floatrock »

mickfaraday wrote: post #50
floatrock wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, I don't understand what this model is trying to conceptualize. The hydrostatic analogy helps a person understand the difference between voltage and current. But its real power is it gives you the building blocks that lets you understand more complicated behaviors by analogy. Take power in the P=I*V sense. Pretending it's water, we can see how a supersoaker nozzle (ie high voltage, low current) is ki…

"what does this help me grasp" That electricity can be explained with atoms! And not the kind of bohr-model atoms that are thoroughly debunked (electron bead flying around nucleus magically). If we treat them like gearing shells, as chemists have for decades, we can provide a model of electricity that is consistent with quantum mathematical descriptions of the atom's shape and motion.

If you're the author, you should make clear who your audience is. "Demystifying Science" and "How to Visualize Electricity" imply a general high school audience... this sounds like it's specifically "How to Visualize Electricity for Quantum Physicists." Perhaps start off by stating some quantum formulas or misconceptions that aren't well served by the hydrostatic analogy but your analogy helps explain better. If I don't understand that framing, I'll know right away "ok, this is for a grad-level understanding, not high school."

Not saying this is bad work, it's just very niche work where people outside the niche won't really understand the point or appreciate it. Know your audience, and present appropriately. It fell flat to me because I was expecting it to be something that apparently it is not.

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